


Fully Grown

by thedaughterofkings



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Age Difference, Alive Laura Hale, Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Feral Derek, Flashbacks, M/M, POV Alternating, Pre-Slash, Slow Burn, Soulmate-Identifying Marks, Spark Stiles Stilinski, Traumatized Derek, Wolf Derek
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-13
Updated: 2017-12-26
Packaged: 2019-02-12 23:53:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 13
Words: 36,035
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12971160
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thedaughterofkings/pseuds/thedaughterofkings
Summary: The pup smells of summer, of heat in the air, lightning in the sky.No amount of growling sends him running; he just keeps standing there, staring. He's no threat though, smells of sparks but not of fire, no taste of ashes on the tongue.Satisfied, he turns around, leaving the pup behind, ignoring the acid scent of anxiety and fear that suddenly fills the air.~*~Stumbling across a wolf in the preserve is not what Stiles expects when he goes for a run the last night before school starts again. But even if the wolf acts more intelligent than a mere animal, he can’t have anything to do with Stiles’ unusual soulmark, four vicious scratches down his forearm, can he?And what is Kate Argent doing back in Beacon Hills for the first time since the Hale Fire?





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Jerakeen](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jerakeen/gifts).



> This fic has been a long time in the making!
> 
> Wayyyy back, Jerakeen posted [a soulmark prompt on tumblr](http://thedaughterofkings.tumblr.com/post/113153335086/but-seriously-though) (or rather an addendum to the prompt [Of dogs and deer darcy](http://archiveofourown.org/works/8800942) is based on) and how could I ever resist a soulmate AU! 
> 
> Me and this fic would have never made it to the end together without the immeasurable help from my amazing beta [Larissa](ohfuckthisshit.tumblr.com) and my wonderful cheerleader [Clara](loverofcake.tumblr.com)! Thank you both so much for all your help!
> 
> I'll post this fic as a Twelve Days of Christmas gift, so the next chapter will already be posted tomorrow! And now, without further ado: Happy reading!

Marking ceremonies are supposed to be just that: ceremonies. And in other parts of the world they are. Stiles has seen the pictures of little girls in white dresses, boys in their first ever suit and tie and the occasional other way round. He's seen the videos of the – actually pretty creepy – mass marking ceremonies with 500 children lining up to discover the name of their intended.

 

There are also more free-spirited 'communing with nature' ceremonies where you run in a circle and piss against a tree. Or possibly vice versa. Stiles had been distracted by the pictures of very naked bodies when he looked those up.

 

The latter is obviously belonging to the bunch of ceremonies catered towards adults, but most people get marked as children. The traditional age to perform the ceremony is five years, with an optional repeat every five years if no name appears. That might happen because your soulmate simply hasn't been born yet – which is generally the case, but it might also be because you actually don't have a soulmate. The system isn't foolproof.

 

Scott's mom is the perfect example for that. She didn't get a full mark, just a last name – McCall. When she met Rafael McCall, patching him up in the ER, it all seemed to make sense. Well, Agent McCall, or, as Stiles likes to call him, Agent Dick, is no longer in the picture and Mrs McCall's mark definitely wasn't for him. Whenever talk turns towards soulmate marks, she never fails to press a kiss into Scott's hair and say that he was the McCall her soul was waiting for the whole time. Scott always blushes but hugs her back anyways. Though she seems to have made her peace with her mark, Melissa never took Scott to have his mark revealed. When he asked her about it once, she said that she wanted him to be free, in mind, heart, and body.

 

Stiles gets that, better than Scott himself, he sometimes thinks. But then again, Scott is a hopeless romantic at heart; he'll probably do a joint wedding and marking ceremony one day. That's where you marry the person you believe to be your soulmate and hope that your mark will say the same thing. It obviously only works if you haven't been marked yet and has a great potential for additional drama on your wedding day – Stiles is pretty sure that there's a Julia Robert's film where her mark is the best man's name.

 

But Scott is convinced he'll know when he meets his soulmate, so he isn't worried. Stiles is ever so slightly more skeptic but then again, his marking ceremony didn't exactly go as planned.

 

Though really, marking ceremony is a bit too grand a term for what actually happened. Unfortunately, the only one qualified to perform a marking in Beacon Hills is Deaton, the local veterinary.

 

Thus, Stiles' marking ceremony happened on a Tuesday morning between the yearly teeth cleaning of Miss Wilborn's cat, Mrs Snuffles, and the neutering of the Johnsons’ dog, Tony.

 

Not that Stiles actually remembers this, he was only five after all, but Scott looked it up in Deaton's records once and proceeded to call Stiles 'Mr Snuffles' for a month and regularly asked him whether he felt a special bond with Tony.

 

What Stiles does remember is his mom's face suddenly turning pale, her eyes wide, her teeth biting into her lip. He remembers his dad and Deaton stepping away from him, talking in hushed, hurried voices.

 

And most clearly, he remembers looking down at his arm and not seeing a name, but four scratches, an angry red that faded even as Stiles stared at his arm, until all that was left were white, slightly raised scars, running along the entire length of his left forearm.

 

Deaton did some tests on him and his marks, a lot of tests actually. Little Stiles was prodded and poked at until he started crying. His mom eventually told Deaton to stop, glaring at him while scooping Stiles up into her arms. She had looked like an avenging angel to Stiles, who had held tightly onto her top and hidden his face in her hair.

 

Although he'd eventually let him go that day, Deaton had kept testing Stiles over the years, taking blood samples, photographing his mark and even performing experiments on him that had never been done before.

 

When Stiles was ten, hair freshly shorn and heart freshly broken, Deaton called him and his dad back into his practice, offering to try the ceremony again. He did warn them that this had never been tried before, the closest were the repeated attempts at a marking ceremony if a mark hadn't appeared yet. But no one had ever performed another marking ceremony if the first one had already been successful.

 

His dad was skeptical, worried about anything that might go wrong, even though Deaton calmly assured them that he expected a fat load of nothing to happen – in more sophisticated terms of course.

 

But Stiles begged and pleaded until his dad gave in. He didn't even want a new, normal mark; he just wanted to get rid of the one he already had. He wanted to get rid of the reminder that he was a freak with a dog as his soulmate at best.

 

“And not even that dog loves you, Stilinski! Look at those scratches!” Jackson had crowed, holding Stiles' arm in a tight grip, the dainty “Lydia Martin” on his wrist proudly on display.

 

Stiles hadn't really expected any better from Jackson, so the part that had really stung had been Lydia chiming in, seemingly coming to Stiles' rescue:

 

“Don't be stupid, Jackson! Those obviously aren’t dog scratches.”

 

She had dragged her thin fingers down Stiles' mark, her own wrist pale and unmarked. Stiles had shivered at her touch, and then again for a completely different reason when she had added:

 

“Stilinski's soulmate is obviously a hellhound.”

 

Scott, wonderful, brave Scott, had come running over as soon as he’d seen Jackson accosting Stiles. Breath coming out in wheezing gasps, he’d said something about hellhounds being totally badass and how Stiles' hellhound would rip them all to shreds, before he’d dragged Stiles away from their classmates while offering him his overshirt.

 

It had been a little too small, Stiles' wrists sticking out comically but it had covered most of his soulmate mark and that had been all that he’d cared about right then.

 

So, no, Stiles wanted nothing to do with his mark and if Deaton's ritual happened to reverse the first one and get rid of his mark, Stiles would be a very happy camper indeed.

 

The second ceremony was very different from the first. There were no smiles, no hope, no laughter.

 

Stiles' dad stood in the corner, face drawn tight, his right hand wrapped around his left wrist where Stiles knew his mom's name was written.

 

There was a general air of nervous apprehension and of loss, of something missing.

 

The absence of his mom, usually a constant, simmering ache, suddenly hit him extra hard. He just wanted to be five again, wanted to be able to hide in his mother's hair and have her tell him that everything would be okay.

 

But he was sitting alone on Deaton's examination table, goosebumps breaking out across his skin because Deaton had asked him to take off his shirts so he'd be able to see any ‘development’ immediately. He couldn’t even ask his dad to come over and hold his hand because Deaton didn't want anyone touching him to make sure everything was ‘uncontaminated’.

 

So without anyone to hold on to, no shoulder to hide his face in, Stiles just stared down at his arm and hoped that the lines on it would disappear in a moment.

 

But all that happened while Deaton performed the marking ceremony was an exact repetition of the first time. The marks turned a bright, angry red and then paled to white, slightly raised marks. Stiles did notice that the change seemed to start at the top near his elbow, like something scratching down his arm, leaving his soulmate’s marks behind.

 

When he hesitantly touched them with his other hand, he realized that they'd grown, spread out a bit more. The gaps between the lines had grown bigger, as though the paw that had made them had grown in the last five years.

 

Deaton didn't give them any fake reassurances this time. He just measured and photographed Stiles' mark silently and got another blood sample. Then he told them to keep an eye on his mark and to come back in another five years if there had been ‘no new development’.

 

The only new development was Stiles' wardrobe including a lot more plaid longarm over shirts now, all slightly too big so that the cuffs fell past his wrists, hiding half of his hands and all of his mark with no chance of the sleeves accidentally sliding up.

 

Thus, another five years later, Stiles was back on Deaton's examination table, having yet another marking ceremony performed on him. It was becoming strangely routine. The marking ceremony of course had the same result again.

 

The marks started out red and turned white almost immediately. They'd barely grown over the past five years and Stiles saw Deaton make a note about something or  _ someone _ being ‘fully grown’.

 

Stiles didn't dare ask him what or rather who he meant by that, because for all his bravado, there was still a tiny glimmer of hope hidden deep inside his chest that this had all been a big mistake, some sort of cosmic joke and that the next time the marking ceremony was performed on him, the scratches would disappear and he'd have a perfectly normal name written on his wrist.

 

Deaton apparently having accepted that whatever had made those scratches was actually his soulmate made it all too real. Stiles would rather have no soulmate at all than being the soulmate of whatever ‘fully grown’ beast had marked him so thoroughly.

 

One year later, Stiles is standing in the preserve, on what used to be the Hales’ property, staring into the eyes of a growling wolf.

 

And instead of turning tail and running away as any half-intelligent person would have done, Stiles keeps staring at the wolf, whose eyes seem to be glowing, and thinks:

 

“You are fully grown.”

 


	2. Chapter 2

The pup smells of summer, of heat in the air, lightning in the sky.

 

No amount of growling sends him running; he just keeps standing there, staring. The sweet scent of pheromones wafting through the air around him tells him that he's not really a pup anymore, his limbs long and thin, his paws just slightly too big for his body.

 

He's no threat though, smells of sparks but not of fire, no taste of ashes on his tongue.

 

Satisfied, he turns around, leaving the pup behind, ignoring the acid scent of anxiety and fear that suddenly fills the air.

 

  


 

Stiles must have truly lost his mind because he almost follows the wolf, has to lock his knees tightly to stop himself from running after it.

 

His entire body feels wound too tightly, like a string that's been pulled taut. The slightest touch would make him explode, but there's no one there to touch him and somehow that's worse.

 

Stiles doesn't know how long he's standing there in the preserve, frozen by a look, a hint of a possibility that he doesn't even dare contemplate in his head, but it's long enough that the forest picks up sound again. The birds which had been silent during their little stand-off start singing again.

 

And god, that makes it sound like a western, like Stiles is the sheriff that needs to protect his little town, when really, pulling a gun on the wolf is the last thing on his mind.

 

His phone vibrating in his pocket finally makes him move again. It's Scott, asking if he wants to come over for one last video game session before school kicks their asses again tomorrow.

 

Stiles grins and tells Scott that he'll be used to it after Stiles kicks his ass tonight. He turns and walks back towards where his Jeep is parked at the edge of the woods, trying to put all thoughts of the wolf aside.

 

 

Stiles can't stop thinking about the wolf though. He hasn't stared as much at his mark since he was five and did not yet realize what it meant.

 

He isn't so sure anymore what it means now, if it even means anything, but fact is that since meeting the wolf, Stiles' daily routine has included a walk or run through the woods.

 

He told his dad and Scott he finally wanted to take the lacrosse thing seriously and was trying to get in shape to hopefully get off the bench someday. He feels a bit bad about it because of Scott. He'd been all supportive, crinkly smile and thumbs up, but Stiles knows his brother in all but blood. It's times like these that he really hates Scott's asthma. They've got it mostly under control now; Scott hasn't had an actually life threatening attack in years but that doesn't mean he's up to running through the woods with Stiles.

 

And Stiles feels even worse because he's glad Scott can't come with him, and really what kind of friend does that make him?

 

Because while saying that he's running through the woods to get into shape for lacrosse is not a lie per se, it’s not the whole truth either. He is running, yes, longer and longer each day, but he's also just walking a lot, fingers sliding along bark, leaves slipping through his hands.

 

Scent marking his territory, his mind helpfully supplies.

 

And it’s not as though he hasn’t always been interested in, even fascinated by dogs, wolves, anything that might have left the scratches on his arm, might have left its mark on him. But he's been in a complete researching frenzy ever since he met the wolf. So he knows how important scent is to canines, has read everything about the olfactory sense of some dogs being up to 100 million times greater than a human’s.

 

So yes, he's leaving his scent on trees and other plants throughout the preserve, but not to mark his territory. He’d pee against a tree instead of petting it, if he really wanted to do that. Instead, he’s hoping to perhaps familiarize a certain wolf with his scent.

 

Stiles doesn't think too closely about the reasoning behind his actions, down that path lie potential bestiality and definite madness.

 

So far though, he has just managed to get fitter, which isn't the worst side effect of course. He actually managed to keep up with Jackson for a bit in practice that week. Scott almost gave himself an asthma attack because he was cheering so loudly.

 

If Stiles is honest though, he'd rather see the wolf again.

 

 

His scent is everywhere. It's mostly light, half-faded already. It's not a challenge certainly, no claim to his territory, not that the pup would pose any challenge to him. Still, his scent is everywhere, though the pup is usually long gone.

 

He's napping in the sun when the pup crashes through the woods not far from him. He's loud, branches and leaves breaking noisily underneath his paws.

 

It's easy to follow him, easier yet to remain unnoticed because the pup never looks back, isn't aware of his surroundings at all if his paws catching on stones and air every few steps is any indication.

 

The pup runs in a circle, ending up in the clearing where he was napping earlier.

 

Breathing heavily, the pup lets himself fall to the ground, limbs starfishing out on the grass. He keeps lying there, unaware that he's being watched, staring up into the canopy until his breathing has slowed down to a normal rate.

 

He doesn't say anything, and really, why would he, he thinks he's alone, but his scent talks loud enough of disappointment when he gets up again. His steps no longer make the ground shake but it's still easy enough to track his path through the forest by ear.

 

Only when the pup reaches the edge of the forest does he step out of the bushes onto the clearing, sniffing at the place where both he and the pup lay. The potency of the scents mixed there makes him sneeze. He wants to roll in the scents, cover himself in the smell of the pup, truly mix his scent with someone else's again. It's been so long since his scent hasn't been purely his own, no trace of pack, of family, on him. He has stopped counting winters, no, years, long ago.

 

But this boy's scent makes him want to start again.

 

  


 

Stiles doesn't have any luck over the next few weeks either. The wolf still is a no-show during his forest runs, and really, Stiles would probably have stopped trying a long time ago if not for Scott and Allison.

 

Because, yes, Scott and Allison finally became  _ Scott and Allison _ . Stiles saw that coming from a mile away. Scott had been mooning over her since the first day of school when she asked to borrow a pen. Scott spilled his entire pencil case across the floor and Allison dimpled at him and helped pick it all up.

 

They'd been dancing around each other for a few weeks with Stiles not so subtly rolling his eyes in the background, when Scott finally gathered enough courage to ask her out and she said yes.

 

Well, actually, Scott said yes, because Allison asked him out first, but he'd planned to ask her out that very same day and that has to count for something, right?

 

Scott had just been waiting for the end of the school day whereas Allison asked him out first thing in the morning.

 

Stiles wished she'd waited as well because Scott was absolutely useless the rest of the day. Stiles had to drag him around bodily while Scott stared dreamily into the distance and mumbled about roses and chocolate and blushed bright red whenever Allison looked in his direction.

 

It was adorable.

 

They were actually very good about trying to include Stiles, trying to not make him feel left out. But there were only so many times you could play the third wheel on your best friend's date.

 

Some things were fine, going bowling with Scott and Allison was actually a lot of fun. Scott was atrocious at it, so much so that he stopped playing altlogether at one point, play pouting on one of the plastic chairs while Allison and Stiles had an epic to-death bowling battle, giggling and teasing each other as if they'd been friends for ages and trying to trip the other up whenever it wasn't their turn. Scott stopped pouting eventually and cheered them on, pretty equally even.

 

That evening, Stiles noticed the purple band that was wrapped around Allison's wrist, covering the place where most people's soul mark appeared. He didn't say anything but he did nod at it, wriggling his eyebrows when Allison noticed. She shook her head, silently telling him to leave it, but the way she started blushing told Stiles that he didn't have to fear for Scott's heart – at least not because of that.

 

So he tried to give them time on their own, even if it was hard. Time that Scott spent with Allison meant time that Stiles spent alone after all.

 

But on the other hand, sitting next to Scott and Allison in the theater while they held hands and probably made out didn't sound like his idea of a fun time. Thus, Stiles kept up his running, even if he'd mostly given up hope to ever see the wolf again.

 

He doesn’t feel like running on this particular day, though. It's his mom's birthday and his breath has been slightly too quick, slightly too shallow the entire day already. So he just walks aimlessly through the preserve, ending up in the clearing he's been in once before.

 

He doesn't want to sound too cliché by saying that he feels drawn to it, but really, that's just the way it is. The last time he was here, he could have sworn the wolf was watching him. Again, not to sound too much like a romance novel, but he's pretty sure his mark tingled and even itched that day.

 

Today he's alone, though; he's sure of it, no tingling, itching or any other reaction from his mark whatsoever. The forest is quiet around him, or as quiet as it's going to get without it being unnatural. The sun is still strong enough that the ground is warm and dry, rather than cold and soggy as it'll get during winter, so Stiles just sits down on the grass.

 

He draws his legs close to his body, wrapping his arms around them, and hides his face behind his knees. The sounds of the forest, rustling in the underbrush, birds singing above, the mating call of an amorous fox in the distance, slowly disappear until silence hangs over the clearing like a dome. Stiles doesn’t really notice, too caught up in his own pain and heartache. He doesn't know how long he's been sitting there when a whine breaks the silence. Stiles irrationally thinks that the sound was made by himself at first, even though no noise left his throat. After all, he did start crying at some point, albeit silently. So he just keeps his head down and concentrates on not letting out anymore sounds.

 

There's another whine a few moments later though, a high pitched, almost voiceless sound that seems to echo Stiles' sadness. But this time Stiles is sure it didn't come from him. When something cold and wet touches his hand, he almost screams out loud, head shooting up to see what’s in front of him. He finds himself face to face with a wolf and scrambles backwards with a stifled cry, his heart beating frantically in his chest. He’s stuck in the middle of a fight-and-flight response, well aware that he’d have no chance either way.

 

But the wolf just keeps whining and staring at Stiles and doesn’t move any closer, so Stiles stares back and slowly feels his heartbeat calming down again. Until he realises that this isn’t just any wolf, but  _ his  _ wolf, the one he’s been trying to find again for weeks. And suddenly his heart is beating in overtime again, but for a completely different reason. 

 

“Hey Buddy,” he says, voice scratchy and still clogged with tears even though they have stopped flowing in the meantime.

 

The wolf stops whining and just looks at him, ears cocked forward. So Stiles starts rambling, while slowly, glacially slow, stretching out his hand, giving the wolf plenty of time to shy away.

 

“It's good to see you. D'you know I've been trying to find you again? I've been trying to leave my scent on trees and stuff, scentmarking, you know? Do you recognize it?”

 

His hand is close to the wolf now, close enough that either of them moving forward a little bit will make them touch. Stiles tries to stay as still as he can, but he can't help the slight tremor that makes his hand shake. 

 

It's the wolf that moves forward, his snout just barely touching Stiles' fingers, taking in his scent, and then he sneezes. Loudly.

 

He shakes his head afterwards, looking disgruntled, and Stiles laughs.

 

“Don't tell me I smell, buddy! I took a shower before coming here and I've just been walking today!”

 

His hand is still stretched towards the wolf who hasn't moved away yet either. Stiles leans slightly forwards, keeping up his chatter the entire time.

 

“Can I pet you? No, not pet of course, you are not a pet, just touch you? And okay, yes, pet you, too, I guess. Petting you doesn't make you a pet. Or does it? I wonder what came first, petting or pets? God, you must think I'm completely mad, sitting here talking about petting you instead of running away screaming. And okay, now that is actually mad, thinking you are judging me. But I can't help it, you've got a very judgy face, dude. I bet your eyebrows would be all drawn together if you had eyebrows. Do you have eyebrows? Do wolves have eyebrows?”

 

The wolf huffs and butts his head into Stiles' hand, making it slip over a silky black ear. Stiles does not squeak. Okay, maybe a bit.

 

He starts stroking the wolf's fur almost immediately though, scratching behind his ears and smoothing down a ruffle on the top of his head.

 

“Okay, petting it is, awesome, man. Your fur is really soft, you know? And you're really warm. 'S nice.”

 

Stiles is getting a bit drowsy, the tears and the excitement of meeting the wolf again taking their toll. The wolf huffs again and settles down more firmly in front of Stiles. If this were a cheesy fantasy romance, the wolf would curl around Stiles, they'd cuddle for a bit and eventually the wolf would get up and transform into a pretty, naked man. And Stiles would swoon.

 

As it is, they just sit sort of across from each other, Stiles still petting the wolf, daring to stroke further down his body every now and then. 

 

No transformations happen whatsoever.

 

  


 

He smells the pup long before he sees or even hears him. The stench of misery covers the entire forest. It's thickest over their clearing, and that's indeed where he finds the pup.

 

He's curled together tightly, hiding his face, but he can't hide his scent, salty with tears.

 

He slinks closer, belly almost pressed to the floor, not sure what to do, just knowing that he wants to do something, wants to help the pup somehow.

 

The boy hasn't noticed him yet. It's as though he's caught in an impermeable bubble of his own making, his sadness like a shield.

 

He whines. It's as much an attempt to get the pup's attention as it's him sharing in the pup's pain.

 

The boy's heart stumbles on a beat but he still doesn't look up. So he leans forward and touches the boy's hand, whining again. This time the pup's heartbeat spikes and his head shoots up. He scrambles backward and stares like a rabbit caught in a trap, but he doesn’t run away. 

 

After a few more moments of silence the boy starts talking. 

 

He can't really follow the pup, too many words, too quickly, too much. But he likes the sound of his voice, how it becomes clearer with every word, the tears drying slowly, likes that he can do this for the pup, even if he's not really doing anything, likes that talking to him lifts the mantle of sadness a bit, the boy's scent lighter already.

 

He might not follow his words but the boy's movements are clear enough, his hand shaking slightly as he stretches it out.

 

He touches the boy for the second time. That's important somehow, he doesn't know why, but it is, and he drags in a deep breath, filling his lungs, his everything with the boy's scent. He knows it already of course, has been tracking it across the preserve for weeks, but he's so used to taking in every single molecule, looking for the slightest hint of it, that the potency of breathing in the scent directly from the source makes him sneeze.

 

The pup jumps and for a moment he is afraid he scared him off after all, but the boy laughs, endorphins dominating his scent within a heartbeat.

 

His whole body moves with the laugh, his eyes crinkle shut, his mouth opens wide, and he can’t help staring in fascination.

 

It's not a long spectacle, the boy calms down again quickly, but although there's still an undercurrent of sadness in his scent, epinephrine and cortisol still coursing through his blood, it's no longer as overwhelming as it was when he first came into the clearing.

 

The pup quickly starts talking again, an endless stream of words that seem to serve no real purpose. He’s slowly getting used to the boy’s speed, the words starting to make sense but as far as he can tell, the boy is just talking to fill the silence. His words might make sense but his sentences overall certainly don’t. He catches something about eyebrows, wolves, and judging, and that just can’t be right. The thing that catches his attention is that the pup seems to think he is a wolf and that feels both wrong and right somehow, like a glove that fits just a bit too tightly. But he can’t think of something that fits him better, his mind not able to grasp the necessary words. 

 

What he does manage to get is that the boy wants to touch him but doesn’t dare to. He wants him to touch him, too, wants their scents to mix, not just on the grass and in the air, but on them, so he presses his head into the boy’s hand which is still stretched towards him. 

 

The boy starts stroking his head immediately, scratching behind his ears lightly, and he relaxes, body settling more firmly on the ground. He can’t remember the last time someone touched him, doesn’t want anyone else to touch him, really, but the boy’s touch is careful, just firm enough to be reassuring, but soft enough to be pleasant.

 

Touching him seems to calm the pup in turn, his heart beat steadily slowing down, evening out, until it’s a strong, regular beat in his ears, his breathing calm and deep. It’s almost enough to send him to sleep but he does his best to stay awake, not wanting to miss a single moment of sitting quietly with this boy.

 

When all the cortisol and epinephrine has left his scent, the pup says softly: “Thank you.” He’s talking more slowly now, his words no longer stumbling over each other, making it easier to follow him. 

 

“I wonder if you have a name. That’s strange, isn’t it? Wolves don’t have names; you wouldn’t even be able to pass that self-awareness test with the red dot and the mirror, but for some reason it feels as though you should have a name.”

 

And in a sudden revelation that isn’t a revelation at all because he has known this all his life, he remembers that he does have a name, that his name is Derek, that it always has been, always will be.

 

But what hits him most isn’t that he temporarily forgot that, forgot his own name, but that he can’t tell the boy, can’t ask him for his own name in return.


	3. Chapter 3

Stiles’ routine doesn’t change so much after this afternoon, as that it expands to include the wolf. He’s no longer alone on his runs; instead there’s a wolf running alongside him now, speeding ahead, and then slowing down again until he’s almost pressed against him. Stiles sometimes thinks that the wolf has a sixth sense for when Stiles is going to fall over his own feet - or some twigs, or stones, or a bunny on one memorable occasion - because whenever he stumbles, the wolf is already next to him, a solid strength to lean on and help him catch his balance. 

 

Their runs always end in what Stiles has come to think of as  _ their clearing _ . They’ve lately started to reenact that romance novel fantasy Stiles had had when they first met there. The wolf presses in close to Stiles as soon as he sits down, more often than not putting his head in Stiles’ lap. 

 

It’s starting to get chillier every day and Stiles is afraid that soon it will be too cold to sit on the ground for an hour every day. For now though, the wolf’s body heat is enough to keep him warm, so Stiles wilfully ignores the warning voice that tells him he has to figure out something soon. 

 

“That was a good run today, wasn’t it, buddy?” he says, absentmindedly petting the wolf’s ears who huffs and turns his head so that Stiles is scratching at the soft part just underneath them instead. Stiles laughs and follows the unspoken command. The wolf seems to understand more with every day they spend together. Stiles is even sure that most of his huffs and yips and growls are in response to his questions and ramblings. He knows it sounds crazy but Stiles has made his peace with being the nutter that talks with wolves. 

 

Well, just one wolf so far, but that’s more than enough already. 

 

Or too much already if you asked other, saner people. Which Stiles certainly doesn’t plan to do.

 

His fingers have stopped scratching, his hand just resting on the wolf’s head, one ear awkwardly caught under his palm. The wolf shakes his head to free his ear and playfully growls at Stiles who just laughs again and throws his arms around him.

 

“Aaw, you’re just a big old softie. All bark and no bite,” he teases, voice muffled in the wolf’s fur.

 

They stay like that for a while, the wolf’s head in Stiles’ lap and Stiles curled over him until the wolf’s nose touches his hand in a move eerily reminiscent of their second meeting.

 

“Hmm? What is it, buddy?” 

 

Stiles raises his head and looks quizzically down at the wolf who makes a questioning noise and touches Stiles’ hand again which is wrapped around his left wrist, thumb slowly rubbing over the layers that are hiding his soulmark. It’s itching again. 

 

“Do you mean this?” he asks the wolf, who almost seems to be nodding, but that is too freaky even for Stiles to truly contemplate.

 

Instead, he sits up straighter and lets go of the wolf in order to be able to unbutton his over shirt.

  
“This is the first time I’ve ever voluntarily shown this to anyone, you know? Like other people have seen this but there’s no one I’ve ever wanted to show this to.”

  
It feels strangely intimate to sit in the forest and take off his layers one by one while the wolf, who had gotten up from his lap as soon as he’d started moving, is sitting opposite him, staring intently. 

 

There is not much to take off until his soulmark is revealed; he just shrugs off his overshirt and rolls up the arm of the tighter shirt beneath that. He’s still mostly dressed, but somehow he feels more on display than he did when completely naked from the waist up in Deaton’s practice. It takes a considerable amount of effort to stretch his arm towards the wolf, presenting his soulmark to him.

 

The wolf first starts sniffing at his arm, working his way up from Stiles’ wrist to his elbow and then suddenly licking across his entire soulmark.

 

Stiles squawks and tugs his arm away reflexively.

 

“Stop, that tickles!” he complains, grinning at the disgruntled face the wolf is making right now. Stiles can’t help noticing though that, while the wolf licking his arm might have momentarily tickled, his mark is actually no longer itching.

 

The wolf presses further into his space, and Stiles sighs and offers his arm to him again.

 

“There you go, sniff and lick to your heart’s content.”

  
The wolf takes him quite literally; every inch of his mark is sniffed, licked, and sniffed again. Stiles lets him and just goes back to stroking his fur.

 

“It’s my soulmark, you know. I mean, now you know. It doesn’t look like a normal soulmark but then again, it’s not as though you could tell, right? Or do wolves get soulmates and soulmarks? I guess not, at least not soulmarks; it’s not as though you can do the necessary ceremonies.”

 

Spontaneous mark reveals are possible but very, very rare, like there are only about a hundred properly documented cases. There are regularly cover stories in the gossip mags about people whose soulmark supposedly appeared without a ritual, but that’s usually fans trying to nab their favourite celebrity by having a fake mark tattooed onto their skin.

 

Stiles used to wish his mark was just a tattoo as well, something pretty permanent still, yes, but not as defining as a soulmark. But ever since meeting the wolf, Stiles has started making peace with his mark.

 

“Hey, fun fact - I thought you were my soulmate at first. Crazy, huh? But you know, desperate times, desperate measures, and all that. I know you aren’t, can’t be, you haven’t scratched me yet after all,” he jokes, sobering again quickly. 

 

“But it’s still a nice thought; I like you. I’d much rather have you as my soulmate than a freaking hellhound.”

 

 

Derek starts joining the boy on his daily runs through the forest. It doesn’t make much of a difference to him, after all he’d already been following the boy on most days. It just means that now he’s close enough to catch him when he falls. It’s as though he hasn’t grown into his feet yet, the way he manages to stumble over nothing, like a pup with too big paws. 

 

What Derek looks forward to most though, is what happens after their run. They always end up in their clearing, sitting together on the grass, Derek curled tightly around the pup, trying to keep him warm. The boy pets his fur, scratches his ears and talks. Pretty much all the time.

 

He still doesn’t always make sense but Derek has realised by now that that isn’t because of any profound lack of understanding from his side, but because the boy is mostly thinking out loud and his mind is all over the place. 

 

He jumps between seemingly unrelated topics effortlessly and so quickly that Derek sometimes gets dizzy just trying to follow him. He does his best to keep the conversation from being completely one-sided but there are limits as to how much he can express. Derek can react as a wolf of course, can lick, growl or perk up his ears, but whether the boy understands what he’s trying to communicate is another question. There’s only so far you can get without words, but Derek doesn’t have access to those, at least not out loud.

 

It took him some time to even realise that, to realise what exactly was wrong, even to realise what he was. As it got easier to follow the boy, words came easier to Derek as well, potential reactions, answers to his questions. But with them came the realisation that he wouldn’t be able to get them out, not in this form. 

 

Indeed, this was perhaps the most important realisation of them all - that this was just one form Derek could take, and not even the one he’d been born in. But realising that unfortunately did not mean that he could simply switch back to his human form again. 

 

It’s not as though he hasn’t tried, alone or bolstered by the presence of the boy - who thought he was suffering from cramps or something. But at least Derek got belly rubs out of that attempt, which was nice. Still, something seems to be preventing him from shifting, like some sort of block. Just as there is a block in his mind somehow, something that doesn’t let him access all of his memories. Because Derek knows he’s a werewolf, knows he hasn’t always been a wolf, hasn’t always lived in the woods. He knows he used to have a pack, used to spend most of his time as a human, but when he tries to remember what happened to his pack, what happened to him, his mind hits a wall. If he tries to find any cracks in it, any way to tear it down, his mind just slips off of it.

 

He tries not to let it get to him too much, to enjoy the time he spends with the boy without constantly picking at the block in his mind. The pup always works well as a distraction, even when he doesn’t say anything, like right now. He might be quiet but his body is constantly moving, settling more comfortably, touching Derek, touching himself. Right now, he’s rubbing at his wrist as though something is bothering him there. There’s a faint hint of something - something magic, something familiar, that’s mostly hidden beneath the boy’s multiple layers of clothes. 

  
Derek noses at the boy’s hand where it’s covering his arm, trying to get a stronger scent. The boy quickly catches what he’s trying to do and starts taking off his shirt to give Derek better access, talking all the time again. Derek watches him intently until the pup’s arm is laid bare to him. His eyes are immediately drawn to the long scratches that mar the boy’s lower arm and Derek almost growls at the thought of someone hurting his pup.

 

There’s something wrong with the scars though, something strange about them. 

 

Derek moves closer, his nose almost touching the boy’s skin as he drags in every last molecule of his scent. This close, the boy’s scent is almost overpowering but Derek has become more than familiar with it over the past weeks, knows how it changes with exhaustion, sadness, exhilaration. It’s easy to filter it out and concentrate on what’s hidden beneath it.

 

Most obvious is the scent of magic, that feeling of lightning in the sky, sparks in the air, that is a part of the boy, even if he doesn’t seem to be aware of that himself. But there is another magic signature woven into these marks, one based on words and herbs, rather than intent and will. Derek can’t quite place it yet, even though he’s sure he knows it, has smelled it before.

 

But he ignores that for the time being, because hidden even beneath that is the scent that is both familiar and not. There’s just a hint of it, gone as soon as Derek thinks it’s going to spark a memory. So he opens his mouth and licks at the scars. His nose might be more sensitive than his tongue, but sometimes adding another sense to the mix helps.

 

The boy squeals and pulls his arm away and Derek stiffens. He didn’t mean to scare him away. But the pup thankfully isn’t put off so quickly, he just giggles and complains about being ticklish before offering his arm back to Derek. 

 

He doesn’t hesitate and goes right back to chasing that elusive scent. It’s familiar, strikingly so, smells of pack, but at the same time it doesn’t. 

 

The scent is not the only strange thing about the marks though. They don’t feel like scars do. Derek might not have any scars himself but his dad was human, and raising werewolf children produced plenty of scars. These don’t feel like the scratches Derek left on his dad’s left leg when Laura chased him when he was three or the lines Laura left on his back when she slipped off his shoulders and tried to hold on. Whereas that skin was dead, these marks are almost vibrating with life, blood pulsing through them. 

 

It doesn’t make any sense until the boy says quietly:

 

“It’s my soulmark.”

 

And Derek is suddenly hit with a vivid memory. He’s sitting in Deaton’s office again - and that’s whose magic he can smell along with the boy’s own - words and herbs and power. And he remembers his mum’s carefully controlled heartbeat, her too even breathing, too calm face, as no mark appeared on his skin. 

 

He remembers the disappointment that turned his scent sour, the anxiety that sped up his heartbeat - not being able to control it the way his mum could.

 

And where before he’d been mad at whoever had marked his pup, he is suddenly blindingly jealous. What surprises himself though, is how it’s not just a general jealousy because he doesn’t have a soulmate and other people do, but something more focussed, a jealousy directly aimed at whoever is the boy’s soulmate. 

 

Because not only do they get to have a soulmate, but they get to have this boy, his pup.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is were the "Traumatized Derek" tag becomes more relevant, so proceed with caution or [hit me up](thedaughterofkings.tumblr.com) for details if you are concerned about that!

Stiles’ mark gets carefully licked and sniffed every day from that afternoon on. The strange thing is that it seems to help, his soulmark is far less itchy than it used to be, feels more like a natural part of him than it ever has.

 

Stiles even tried googling for the “healing properties of wolf spit” but all he got from that was furries and no way was he going to delve any deeper into that. He might have thought a wolf was his soulmate for a hot second - and might still be secretly clinging to that idea - but that was too much even for him. 

 

But whatever the reason, the wolf helped with his mark - noticeably so.

 

Stiles hadn’t realised how much he used to scratch at his mark - or rather the layers of clothing covering it - until his dad brought it up. He carefully asked if there’d been any developments they needed to see Deaton about. For a moment, Stiles thought that his dad was asking him if he was turning into a wolf. The technicalities of that turned his mind completely off track. He started wondering if spit was the carrying agent of the werewolf gene or virus or whatever, and the bite was only to get it into the bloodstream. And in that case, if continuous exposure to wolf spit - like a wolf licking a soulmark daily - would be enough to turn him. 

 

His dad clearing his throat pointedly broke him out of that increasingly worrying train of thoughts. 

 

“Stiles?”

 

“What? No, same old, same old, daddy-o. The in-laws are still hell-hounds, nothing to see here.”

 

And wow, way to raise his dad’s suspicion - and yep, there it is, the dreaded raised eyebrow of disbelief. But his dad thankfully lets it slide for now.

 

“If you are sure, son.”

 

Yes, Stiles is sure. As bad as that was, telling his dad that he lets himself be licked by a wild wolf in the woods would sure be worse. 

 

So he tries to quickly change the topic and distract his dad from any more thoughts of his soulmark.

 

“What’s up with the boxes and folders in the living room by the way? Does Beacon Hills have a drug ring I know nothing of that you’re trying to bust?”

 

Stiles grins, because seriously, it’s Beacon Hills. But his dad doesn’t even crack a smile, he just sighs and shakes his head.

 

“No, it’s nothing new. It’s old files, almost exactly eleven years old actually, from the Hale fire. You probably don’t remember it, you were too young, but the entire family died, except for the two daughters, who weren’t home at the time.”

 

“So their house burnt down? And no one got out?” Stiles asks, caught somewhere between horror and fascination. 

 

His dad shakes his head, looking sad.

 

“It must have been a veritable inferno - we never even identified the youngest son.”

 

Stiles swallows, trying not to think too hard about that.

 

“What made you think about it now, though? Like last year would have made sense, ten year anniversary and all that, but why now?”

 

His dad seems to ignore his questions at first, too caught up in his own thoughts.

 

“I always thought that something wasn’t quite right about that case. Like you said: Why didn’t anyone make it out? Most of the bodies were actually found directly behind doors or windows - how did they make it that far, but not out of the door? It doesn’t make sense.”

 

He falls silent and doesn’t add anything else for long enough that Stiles thinks this is all he’s going to say on the topic. It’s already more than he’s expected; his dad has always tried to keep him away from the more gruesome aspects of his job. 

 

But after a sip from his glass, he continues.

 

“I started looking into it again because I saw one of the former suspects yesterday. Well, actually, the only suspect we had, and even that wasn’t official.”

 

“Why weren’t they officially investigated if you suspected them of being involved?” 

 

Stiles can’t help being confused, because his dad is very good at what he does. Not following a major lead like an actual suspect in a possible multiple murder case is not like him.

 

“Because the arson specialist ruled it an accident and the only thing we had on her was Laura Hale swearing she smelled her perfume around the house.”

 

“So what changed?” Stiles asks, because something must have changed for his dad to open up the case again, even just unofficially in his living room.

 

“She left town almost immediately after the fire, which, yes, was very suspect, but there was nothing I could do about it. But now she seems to be back; I saw her talking to someone - one of your teachers, actually, Harris, I think, and he teaches chemistry, doesn’t he?”

 

Stiles sits up straighter, because, yes, he might get rid of Harris!

 

“You think he laid the fire?”

 

Unfortunately, his dad shakes his head.

 

“Not necessarily, no. But he might have told her how to do it, and how to make it look like an accident, and now she’s back to pick up that loose end.”   
  


“So it’d be like Slughorn, Voldemort and the Horcrux talk, you mean? Like he didn’t do it himself, but his knowledge made the crime possible?”

 

His dad groans, but he also has a smile on his face, so Stiles counts it as a win anyways.

 

“I hate that I got that reference. But essentially, yes, exactly.”

 

Stiles shoves him lightly and grins.

 

“Don’t front, daddy dearest, I know you love Harry Potter and would totally sleep with a McGonagall plushie if you could.”

 

He sobers again quickly, though, because they’re still talking about an entire dead family after all.

 

“So what are you going to do now?”

 

His dad sighs again and shakes his head slightly.

 

“I have no idea. Hope she’ll just confess? I’m going through everything again, trying to find something to pin on Harris at least, but so far I’ve had no luck.”

 

Stiles leans forward eagerly.

  
“I could help you! I could read over the files as well, fresh eyes, fresh mind, right? And I could question Harris! Sneakily of course!”

 

“Of course,” his dad repeats drily. “You’ve seen too many spy movies, son.”

 

“My name is Stilinski, Stiles Stilinski,” Stiles intones dramatically and his dad interjects:

 

“And you don’t like any martini, right?”

 

Stiles rolls his eyes exaggeratedly and his dad swats him lightly.

 

“But seriously, Stiles, there’s nothing you can do. Just don’t ask your chemistry teacher if he helped to kill an entire family a decade ago and we’re good.”

 

  


 

Derek sometimes wishes he could go back to being feral.

 

As as wolf, he didn’t care about tall human boys who fall over their own feet, didn’t worry about something blocking both his memory and his shift, didn’t even know he was anything but a wolf.

  
Okay, the first one is a lie, but the rest holds true.

 

Most importantly though, he didn’t get bored.

 

He used to spend his days chasing rabbits and squirrels and the occasional deer and the rest of his time was filled with naps.

 

He still does the same things now, but somehow the day’s hours seem to have tripled because he’s left with way too much free time on his hands - or paws as it were, because he still hasn’t figured out how to shift back to human. 

 

He keeps working on that every day, tries to concentrate on what it means to be human, what it feels like to be human, but he barely remembers what it feels like to walk on two legs so he is not particularly successful.

 

Derek even tries to stand up on his hind legs but all that does is  make him overbalance and land on his back with all four limbs stretched out and his tail awkwardly caught beneath him. 

  
Whatever he tries, he doesn’t feel so much as a twitch.

 

So he attempts a different approach, worrying at the block in his mind instead. He hopes that retrieving those memories will help trigger his shift as well. He wants to be able to actually remember having hands and fingers again, instead of just knowing the feeling of the pup’s fingers in his fur.

 

Derek fights against the block in his mind, tries to create a crack in it by the sheer force of his will and to a certain extent it works. He remembers his mom and dad, Laura, little Cora, uncle Peter. He knows that all of them except for his dad were werewolves and he also knows that the only one able to do a full shift was his alpha, his mom. Laura was trying to learn to do it, but couldn’t figure out how to make it stick for longer than a few minutes yet.

 

He spends an entire afternoon trying to catch more than a blurry glimpse of himself in the stream running through the preserve, to see if there’s any resemblance between them. But the water isn’t still enough, all he sees is a dark shadow that might as well be a bear or a coyote.

 

One morning, when all he has to show after two hours of trying to retrieve the memories that his own mind is hiding from him is a pounding headache, Derek ventures out of the forest. Well, it’s not as though he can just go for a stroll through Beacon Hills. He’s pretty sure that the normal human reaction to a full sized black wolf isn’t cuddling them.

 

But he does make his way into the more populated areas, where the human scents start layering one on top of the other. It’s easy to tell who travels these paths regularly, their scents brighter threads in the colourful tapestry of human scents. The boy’s scent is a glowing line of fire among them and without a conscious decision Derek starts following it. There aren’t many people in the woods yet; Derek only has to hide in the undergrowth twice to avoid being seen. He guesses most people are at work or in school like his pup. Derek doesn’t have a calendar of course, has no way of telling the day of the week for sure, but he can hazard a good guess by when the boy comes to see him. Five afternoons followed by two days when he comes into the forest earlier. 

 

Unless the sequence of weekdays and weekend changed while Derek was out of commision, today is Monday. That means Derek still has a couple of hours until the boy will come looking for him.

  
It doesn’t take him long to reach the outskirts of the forest. Here, fences suddenly cut into the lines of trees, dividing them into woods and backyards. Derek ambles along the edges, looking into overgrown backyards and accurately cut gardens. 

 

In one garden, a little girl shrieks and runs towards the fence when Derek walks past. She’s staring at him with wide open eyes and is vibrating with excitement. Derek quickly double checks that no one else is near them and then licks across the hand that she has stretched  through a gap in the fence, causing her to shout and jump with glee. 

 

He can still hear her squeals when he’s already three gardens further. Derek briefly entertains the thought of going back and playing with her - perhaps her caretakers would think he’s just a large dog - but then he catches a hint of his pup’s scent again and keeps running along the line of fences with newfound purpose.

 

The boy’s garden is nothing special objectively. Slightly overgrown grass covers most of it and large parts of the fence are hidden by bushes that have grown beyond the edges of the property. The only plants that seem to be regularly cared for are the rose bushes, planted close to the grass. 

 

There’s a couple of trees in the garden, too, most of them towards the edge of the property where the forest starts. But one tree is close to the house, a branch stretching towards a window on the second floor. It’s closed but the scent is so strong that Derek can tell this is the boy’s room anyway. 

 

He has a sudden, ridiculous thought that this tree and its sturdy branches would be perfect to sneak into the pup’s room. Unfortunately he currently lacks the opposable thumbs that would be pretty vital in making it up that tree in one piece.

 

Derek carefully creeps closer to the house, drawn in by the mixture of scents surrounding it. He stays in the shadows, close to the bushes, ears pricked for any sign of nosy neighbours or anyone else who might see and report him. 

 

Up close, it’s easier to tell apart the various scents sticking to the house. There is the pup of course, a layer of varying thickness across everything. It’s a bit like watching the history of the house unfold in front of his eyes, tracking the scents surrounding it. 

 

Derek practically sees his pup walking through the garden, the scent concentrated where he’d linger. It’s almost wafting off the roses, pain making it stronger. It’s not physical pain though, like on the patch of grass where a single, painful moment drenched the earth with the pup’s scent. Derek can’t tell what happened, but whatever it was, it hurt his pup physically. The pain that marks the roses wasn’t physical though, the occasional prick of thorns not enough to lend such strength to the scent. It’s emotional, a different cocktail of hormones that makes Derek bite back a whine.

 

He tries to distract himself by concentrating on the other scents surrounding the house instead. One of them obviously belongs to someone who is related to the boy, his father probably. A faint hint of gunpowder clings to his scent and it’s only the complete absence of wolfsbane that stops Derek from breaking into a run.

 

It takes him several deep breaths to calm down enough to remember that the boy mentioned something about his dad being the sheriff.

 

There’s a third scent around the house, though, not as strong as the pup’s and his father’s. Whose ever scent it is isn’t related to the pup, their scents too different. They don’t live there either, the scent is not strong enough for that, but they are over a lot, have been for years.

 

Derek drags the scent in deeply, trying to learn as much as he can from it. It’s male, and young, hormones in constant flux.

 

And it’s familiar, Derek realises, clings to the pup almost every single day, as though they spend a lot of time together. He can’t hold back a growl when his nose tells him that the other boy’s scent is strongest coming from his pup’s room. Derek is overcome by a sudden desire to roll around in his pup’s bed, rub against all of his things, to overpower that rival’s scent. He almost tries to climb up the tree next to the house after all, but in the end settles for marking his territory by pissing against the house instead. 

 

He can practically hear Laura laughing at him and calling him an animal, but he doesn’t care. If he’s stuck as a wolf, he might as well go to town with the animal instincts.

 

  


 

Stiles can’t stop thinking about what his dad told him about the Hale fire. He doesn’t ask Harris about it, he promised his dad he wouldn’t after all, but he never promised not to observe him. 

 

He stares at him during the entire lesson, trying to catch him at  _ something _ until Harris hits him with detention for ‘suspicious behaviour’ and if that is not an admission of guilt then Stiles doesn’t know what is.

 

He wouldn’t mind the detention so much - it gives him more time to observe Harris - if he didn’t know that his wolf would be waiting for him. So when Harris finally lets him go, Stiles hurries home and throws on the first clothes he sees that are vaguely sporty. 

 

He’s not even sure that all of them are his, the overshirt is a bit too small rather than a bit too large, so it probably belongs to Scott. But it’s not as though Scott would mind, so Stiles just grabs his keys and goes. 

 

Their clothes have a tendency to mix up, though it’s no longer as bad as it was a few years ago. They both have a couple of outfits at each others place in case of unplanned sleep overs - and a couple more in Stiles’ case to deal with accidents. No, not him peeing his pants, but in case of milk and cereal spillage, blood dripping onto his shirt from a nosebleed, or ink all over his trousers because his pen broke in two. This isn’t the stuff of fiction, mind, it has all happened once or twice - or ten times; Melissa’s ban on froot loops is still in effect.

 

So Stiles doesn’t really think anything of wearing Scott’s shirt until the first thing his wolf does when Stiles reaches their clearing is growl low in his throat and tackle him to the ground. He’s gentle and it doesn’t scare Stiles - even though it probably should, but Stiles has long given up on expecting himself to react appropriately to the wolf. So instead of screaming, he just laughs and pets the wolf’s head.

 

“Hey, sorry I’m late, Harris gave me detention, the dick. Did you miss me?”

 

The wolf doesn’t answer obviously, he just tries to, what, undress Stiles?

 

He keeps sniffing at him and catches his overshirt between his fangs, dragging it down, until Stiles’ elbows get into the way. Then he lets out a huff that frankly sounds adorable and proceeds to tug harder until Stiles is afraid he’s going to rip the shirt in two.

 

“Hey, hey, calm down, would you? I’ll take it off if it bothers you that much, just don’t tear it apart, that’s Scott’s.”

 

The wolf lets out another growl at that, but he also lets Stiles sit upright again, and take his shirt off without ripping it to shreds, so Stiles lets it pass for now. 

 

He ran most of the way here, so he isn’t cold yet, but he’s still glad when the wolf immediately wraps around him, warm fur rubbing against his entire upper body. Stiles is reminded of a cat the way he walks around him in a tight circle - twice - before he settles down.

 

“All good now?” Stiles asks, waiting for the wolf to react somehow - it ends up being another adorable huff - before he continues.

 

“I really am sorry I’m late; I hope you didn’t worry. But it wasn’t my fault! Harris - that’s my chemistry teacher - just hates me! He’s a complete dick and I really wish Dad would be able to pin something on him.”

 

The wolf nudges him with his snout which Stiles takes to mean “I find what you are saying very interesting. Please tell me more, Stiles.”

 

“Yeah, my dad is totally investigating him which is great already. Well, not officially yet, but he’s trying to solve this old case, a house fire that killed an entire family more than ten years ago.”

 

The wolf has become rigid underneath his hands; he doesn’t even seem to be breathing, he’s holding so still. But he still seems to be listening avidly so Stiles just keeps talking for now.

 

“Harris is one of the suspects. Or well, close enough. My dad thinks he helped her, at least. The woman who set the Hale fire.”

 

The wolf knocks Stiles’ upper body into the ground in his sudden hurry to get up. Then he takes off into the forest without so much as a glance backwards .

 

As Stiles scrambles up and starts running after him, all he can think is: “What the hell.”

 

  


 

“The Hale fire. The woman who set the Hale fire.”

 

The boy’s words keep repeating in Derek’s head, like the worst broken record imaginable.

 

There is soot on his fur, ash on his tongue, mountain ash and plain old regular ash alike, the kind that you get when you burn a house to the ground with the entire family inside.

 

The memories keep coming in waves, one bigger than the other, until Derek feels that he is going to be swallowed up, drowning in fire and ash.

 

It makes him desperately wish that the the block in his mind was still intact. 

 

He’s running through parts of the forest now that are as familiar to him as the back of his hand, even though he hasn’t been here in over ten years. It’s as if there’d been an invisible wall that had kept him away without him even noticing.

 

These are the woods that he ran through as a child, where Laura dared him to eat a squirrel, where his mum had to climb up a tree after him because he couldn’t get down anymore, while uncle Peter laughed his ass off.

 

This was home, this was safe when he was younger, and now Derek just sees a sea of red instead of green while he runs through it, blood, and fire, and glowing embers mocking him.

 

He’s still clinging to that last tendril of hope, of “maybe he’s wrong”, “maybe I am wrong”, when he breaks through the line of trees and looks upon where a big house, his  _ home _ should stand. There aren’t even ruins anymore, just holes in the ground and charred pieces of wood sticking up like bones, or teeth, or burnt out matches.

 

Derek hysterically thinks: “This is a safety hazard.”

 

And then he throws back his head and howls.


	5. Chapter 5

Stiles is running before his brain catches up with his body. 

 

He only gets a glimpse of the wolf from time to time, far ahead of him between the trees. The part of him that isn’t methodically trying to figure out what happened to set the wolf off like this hysterically thinks that this is probably the proper distance between wolf and man, far off shadows and not cuddling in clearings.

 

When a howl suddenly rings out across the forest, Stiles stumbles and falls, scraping his hand and ripping the trousers at his right knee.

 

There’s so much pain in the howl, grief, loss, and agony, that Stiles’ heart aches in sympathy. With renewed determination, he pushes himself up, ignoring the burning scratches on his hands and the twinge in his knee.

 

The howl has stopped but it is as though it’s reverberating through the forest, leading Stiles to its source. 

 

He’s breathing hard by the time he breaks through the line of trees that make up the edge of the forest, both from the exertion and the pain that’s now steadily pounding in his knee. The sight that greets him is chilling, the blackened ruins of what has to be the Hale house and in front of it, his wolf an even darker shadow. 

 

His head is down but it snaps up when Stiles takes a careful step forward. His next step is even slower, but that puts too much pressure on his bad knee which gives out underneath him. With a choked back groan, Stiles loses his balance and falls, hitting the ground hard.

 

Almost immediately, the wolf is next to him, nosing at his hands which are now bleeding and his knee which is throbbing heavily. The wolf whines high in his throat and Stiles’ chuckle is revealingly close to a sob as he reaches out to pet the wolf.

 

“Hey there, buddy, it’s alright, I’m alright. I meant to be the one comforting you this time, not the other way round again. Even if I’m not sure what’s bothering you.”

 

The wolf whines again and nudges against Stiles’ arm who raises it and hugs him close. 

 

“Is it the house? The family that used to live here? Did you know them?”

 

It’s a stupid suggestion of course, improbable at best, and impossible at worst, but it’s the only explanation for the wolf’s behaviour that Stiles can think of right now. The wolf doesn’t seem to care anyways. His whines are starting to sound increasingly anxious and he’s pushing up, trying to move Stiles, lift him up. 

 

“Okay, okay, I’m getting up, relax. This place really freaks you out, doesn’t it? I get it; it’s super creepy.”

 

Stiles pushes himself up, one arm wrapped around the wolf’s neck, the other on the ground. With the wolf helping, he manages to stand somewhat upright again but when he tries to take a step, his knee gives way and he half falls onto the wolf.

 

“Sorry, buddy, I don’t think I’m going anywhere. My knee’s fucked up.”

 

The wolf is whining continuously now, a noise that is both grating and heartbreaking. He moves under Stiles, putting the mass of his body beneath him so that Stiles’ arms are hugging his neck and then takes a careful step, dragging Stiles with him.

 

“Woah, hey, no,” Stiles rolls off the wolf’s back, careful not to hit his knee again.

 

“I know you mean well, but you dragging my poor body through the forest is not going to go well for either of us! Look, I’ve got this amazing invention here, a mobile phone, that I’m going to use to call my dad to get me. Even if he’s going to rip me a new one for being here in the first place.”

 

The wolf still looks as though he’d rather try his chances dragging Stiles through the forest by the scruff of his neck, so Stiles quickly fumbles for his phone. By some inexplicable miracle it has survived his multiple falls, and his dad picks up on the first ring, too. It’s almost as though this is his lucky day, Stiles thinks caustically.

 

“What is it, Stiles?” his dad asks and Stiles winces because his dad is not going to like what he’s about to say.

 

“Heyo, Daddy-o! So I might need you to come and pick me up, please? I think I’m at the Hale house.”

 

 

Derek’s head is a mess.

 

It’s as though he’s in several places at the same time. Running through the forest with this pup, running towards his home that is set ablaze, lying in a clearing with his pup, his mom, Laura, pushing through smoke to get to his family, to help his dad open the window after he’d burnt the pancakes, it all mixes up in his mind, becomes one, jumping back and forth between happiness and grief, fear and joy, before and after and  _ then _ in the blink of an eye.

 

What breaks him out of it is his pup breaking through the forest line, anxiety and pain thick layers on top of his scent, but still coming for Derek, always coming for Derek.

 

He’s injured, though, and Derek hurries to his side. The boy is talking, but all Derek can smell are pain and fire, and the only thought that fills his mind is: “We have to get away; I need to get him out of here; I need to save him!”

 

It only gets louder when the pup won’t move, can’t move, and Derek sees, feels, smells the flames closing in on them. He pushes the pup gently and then gets increasingly frantic when it becomes clear that the pup won’t be able to run away to safety by himself. Derek tries to help him up, to carry him if necessary, but the pup refuses to be moved. 

 

All of Derek’s attempts to get him away from the fire fail, and Derek is not about to leave him, so he just gives up and curls up around the boy, trying to smother flames that burnt out long ago with the presence of his pup.

 

  


 

“Stiles!”

 

His dad doesn’t take it very well.

 

“What did I say about poking your nose into this?”   
  


“Not to,” Stiles answers dutifully. “But I didn’t, dad! It was an accident! Literally!”

 

His dad scoffs.

  
“Oh, like you ‘accidentally’ turned on the siren ten times in a row? Wait, literally?”

 

“I was like five, dad! And yeah, literally. It’s not that bad, don’t worry, I’m not bleeding. Much.”

 

There’s just one large scratch on his left hand that’s still bleeding, the rest have scabbed over already. 

  
“I just can’t really walk, and I don’t think I could drive either, so could you please come and get me?”   
  


“More like twelve,” his dad mutters, but at least he doesn’t sound mad anymore. When he speaks next, it’s with his sheriff voice, the one that says he means business.

 

“Okay, so where are you exactly? And how bad is it really? Do I need to call an ambulance or just tell Melissa we’re coming round again?”   
  


“Well, as I said, I think I’m at the Hale house, but I’m not completely sure because I did not go looking for it,” Stiles says firmly.

 

“But there can’t be that many more burnt down houses in the preserve, can there? I’ll turn on the GPS on my phone as soon as we hang up though, then you can make sure. And seriously, no ambulance necessary, dad, no threat of imminent death! I just twisted my knee or something.”

 

“Okay, if you’re sure. We’ll still talk about what you were doing out there, though! See you soon, love you, son.”

 

His dad sounds fond, if a bit exasperated. Stiles smiles down at his lap where the wolf’s ears are twitching.

 

“You, too, dad. Thanks for coming to get me.”

 

It takes his dad at least half an hour to make it out to Stiles, who spends the entire time by hugging and petting the wolf.

 

He still seems to be anxious and freaked out, so Stiles quietly tells him fairytales, like his mum used to do for him, in an attempt to distract him and calm him down.

 

Unsurprisingly,  _ Little Red Riding-Hood _ does not meet with the wolf’s approval. He seems to be very into  _ Brother and Sister _ though, commenting on the story in his own way, little huffs and puffs and ear twitches.

 

Stiles wants to pinch his cheeks and say “Aaaaawww” in a very high pitched voice, it’s so cute.

 

But before he’s even half-way through the fairytale, the wolf lifts his head and stares down the road that leads to the house, or what remains of it, rather.

 

“What is it? Is it my dad? If someone’s coming, you’ve got to go!”

 

The wolf is tense underneath his hands, all coiled up energy ready to explode. They stay quiet another minute or so, Stiles straining to pick up whatever the wolf’s hearing. Finally, he can hear a car driving through the forest, too.

 

“Wow, your hearing has to be really good! It’s better than I realised. That should be my dad though, so you really need to go now, before he sees you!”

 

Stiles gently shoves the wolf, trying to nudge him along, but he won’t budge.

 

“Seriously, you’ve got to go! If you’re worried about me, don’t be, my dad will take care of me now, I’ll be fine! But I don’t want to have to be worried about you either, so please go before you get shot! I’ll be back, I promise, and I’ll tell you the rest of the fairytale, too, if you want me to, but you need to leave  _ now _ !”

 

He shoves the wolf again on the last word, harder this time, and it finally works. The wolf gets up, but then just keeps standing next to Stiles, looking sort of lost and as if he’s far away.

 

Stiles wants nothing more than to draw him in again and hug it all better until he’s back to normal. But he can hear his dad’s car loud and clear now which means that he’s got to be close.

  
“Please,” his voice is barely more than a desperate whisper now, but the wolf is finally starting to move away.

 

It’s everything Stiles wanted and the exact opposite.

 

When the wolf reaches the line of trees again, he stops and looks back at Stiles sitting on the grass. It feels as though it’s been hours since Stiles stumbled out of the forest, but it probably hasn’t even been forty minutes.

  
“Please take care of yourself,” Stiles whispers. 

 

It almost looks as though the wolf nods and then he turns around and is gone, hidden in the shadows of the woods again.

 

When Stiles looks back to the road, he sees his dad’s cruiser coming around the corner.

 

It means that he’s been found and is safe now, but all he feels is lost and as though he’d just said a final goodbye.

 

  


 

Derek waits until the car stops next to his pup and a man gets out. He’s prepared to run back down into the clearing, into the flames that still cloud his vision, if the man turns out to pose any threat at all to the pup. But the boy stays relaxed and lets the man help him up without putting up any resistance. Derek still stays alert until the scent of the man reaches him and Derek realises that this has to be pup’s father, his scent familiar from clinging to the boy and the boy’s home. But he still watches until his pup has disappeared into the car before he starts running again. 

 

He runs until the roaring of blood in his ears is louder than the roaring of flames in his mind. He runs until he physically can’t run anymore, until every step makes him stumble and fall, and even then he still drags himself further until he finds a small cave to hide in, just a couple of big stones stacked together really, but a semblance of safety nevertheless. Then he sleeps.

 

When he wakes up, Derek has no idea where he is. He must have run way beyond his territory yesterday; the air is crisp and clean around him, no hint of his scent anywhere but in the cave. His dreams were filled with flames and ashes and his mouth is dry, so the first thing he does is follow the faint scent and sound of water, which leads him to a small pond. 

 

Before he can drink from it though, he catches a glimpse of his reflection in the calm water. It shouldn’t surprise him so much, shouldn’t make him back up a step and then take two closer again, because he knows he is fully transformed, is for all intents and purposes a wolf right now. Even before this, he had been aware that the full shift was possible. That it was possible for  _ him _ was a surprise, yes, but not the shift as such.

 

But what he didn’t expect is to look into the mirror the water creates and see his mum looking back at him. She didn’t shift fully very often, preferred to have two hands to grab him and Laura with if the situation called for it, but Derek still remembers what she looked like when she changed her shape fully. He remembers her black, shiny fur, soft and warm when he hugged her, the wetness of her snout pressing against his cheek, how her eyes were dark and warm and then she blinked and they shone brightly, red, like fire, and blood, and danger, but still full of warmth when looking at him. Derek looks down at his mother’s face, but looking back at him are his own eyes. He shuts them tightly and when he opens them again, they are glowing blue.


	6. Chapter 6

Stiles gets grounded of course.

 

He didn’t really expect his dad to believe him when he said that he’d accidentally stumbled across the Hale house. Not after their conversation about the Hale fire and Stiles’ eagerness to investigate. It stung a bit because Stiles was actually telling the truth, but short of saying “I just ran after the wolf that I’ve been hanging out with in the forest” there was nothing he could do to make his dad believe him. 

 

So Stiles just bears his cross in silence. Well, as much as Stiles is ever silent.

 

That is to say, he pesters his dad for every little detail of the Hale case. The entire family dying had been a terrible thought before, but now, with his wolf being so affected by the sight of the burnt down house, the case has become personal. Stiles still has no idea how his wolf is connected to all of this - there’d been no record of the Hales caring for a wolf as a pet, or even of a suspiciously big dog - he’d checked - but Stiles still dreams of that howl sometimes, of the sheer terror, pain, and devastation that it expressed. 

 

What makes it worse is that he hasn’t seen the wolf in two weeks. At first he couldn’t go into the woods because his knee was sprained and more than hobbling around awkwardly wasn’t possible. He wasn’t officially grounded then because his dad said there was no use when he couldn’t even move around the house. But as soon as Stiles had been able to walk around again, his dad had hit him with a set of very strict rules. 

 

He had to be home straight after school, no Scott or running around in the woods in the afternoon, and no staying up into the early hours of morning. 

 

Well, joke’s on him because all of that time spent at home just meant that Stiles had been able to go through all of the files his dad had on the Hale case - him leaving them out had to be an implicit permission, right? 

 

And yeah, Stiles gets now why his dad had tried to keep them away from him. There actually weren’t a lot of pictures, but the descriptions were bad enough. And Stiles’ imagination did the rest.

 

That’s when the dreams about his wolf howling started. They aren’t nightmares per se, but they aren’t happy dreams either. Stiles just hears his wolf howling and when he wakes up, all he wants to do is go into the woods and find him and hug him until he isn’t so sad anymore. 

 

One night, he must have sleepwalked because he wakes up halfway down the stairs and nearly brains himself when he realises where he is and jerks to a sudden stop. 

 

Figures that unconscious Stiles is still more graceful than awake Stiles. 

 

He quickly creeps back into his room; the week of house arrest is almost over and Stiles trying to sneak out in the middle of the night would surely be a good cause for more grounding in his dad’s eyes. 

 

Stiles spends the rest of the night sitting in front of his open window listening to the howls on the wind. 

 

  


 

Derek must have run as if the hounds of the Wild Hunt were after him. It takes him days to make it back to more familiar grounds, retracing his steps, following his own scent.

 

There’s no need to hurry; the weather is cool and cloudy enough that the scent is still strong, clinging to the leaves he brushed against while running away, pooling in the imprints of his paws in the moist soil. There’s no need to hurry either because there’s no one waiting for him at the end of this journey. At least, Derek doesn’t expect anyone to. There’s his pup, of course there is, but Derek still remembers the sharp scent of his pain and the blood on his hands, even through the fire that was clouding his mind at the time. He’s not going to be able to make it into the woods for quite some time with his leg hurt, and even when he’s healed, Derek isn’t sure if he should come back into the woods.

 

Or no, Derek is sure that he shouldn’t; he just isn’t sure that his pup won’t. He’s stubborn, and loyal, and doesn’t care about his own safety enough. Case in point: Him befriending Derek when he was still feral and for all intents and purposes a wolf. 

 

So Derek takes his time, slowly working his way back through the forest, and back through his memories as well. He shies away from that particular day at first; he gets now why there was a block in his mind, even if he doesn’t quite understand how it got there or how it finally broke. Uncle Peter would probably have looked down his nose at him and proceeded to give him a lecture on psychology and the workings of the mind. But Uncle Peter can’t make any smartass comments anymore and Derek doesn’t even know if he can physically cry in this form, but there’s a lump in his throat that keeps growing. 

 

He ends up at the house again, what used to be his home, and even without the roar of flames surrounding it, it looks foreboding, burnt down and dead, but still aware somehow. ‘As if a family of ghosts inhabited it,’ his brain supplies unsolicitedly. 

 

A gust of wind stirs up some of the dirt - dust, ash? - that covers everything, and Derek shivers.

 

  


 

The first thing Stiles wants to do when his prison time is over, is go into the woods to find his wolf. But unfortunately Scott has other plans for him.

 

“You’ve got to come with us!” Scott is pleading and confronting Stiles with his best pair of puppy dog eyes. Next to him Allison is batting her lashes hopefully and Stiles just caves.

 

“Okay, fine!” he exclaims, making Scott actually cheer and Allison clap her hands. Stiles rolls his eyes because his friends are dorks, but he can’t help grinning back at them, because his friends are  _ dorks _ .

 

“So what’s the plan?” he asks, because so far all he knows is that it’s absolutely imperative that he joins them in whatever they have planned.

 

“We don’t know,” Allison says and Scott ducks his head when Stiles looks at him in silent, questioning judgement, because  _ What the hell?? _

 

“How can you not know what you’re going to do in three hours, but know that I desperately need to be a part of it?” he demands and stares at Scott because he knows Scott will cave first. And he does:   
  
“Allison’s aunt wants to get to know me,” Scott explains and Allison interrupts him, eyes twinkling: “And Scott’s scared and needs some male support and protection from my big scary aunt.”

 

“Oh shut up,” Scott complains, “you said Stiles should come so that she doesn’t have to feel like a third wheel. And anyways, she  _ is  _ sort of scary!”

 

Allison turns to glare at Scott and while it’s mostly playful, it has still got a slight edge to it. Stiles quickly grasps at something to say before their bickering turns into either a fight or a schmoopy make-out session - both are equally possible.

 

“You’re not trying to set me up with Allison’s aunt, are you? She’s got to be ages older than me!” 

 

It serves as a sufficient enough distraction because Allison gasps and says: “She’s just turned 31!” and Scott teasingly winks at Stiles and says: “Ever heard of a couuuuugarrrr?”

 

“Eew, Scott!” Stiles exclaims, shuddering demonstratively, “she’s more than ten years older than me! What the hell would she want with a high schooler? And for once I don’t mean that self-deprecatingly at all!”

 

“But what if she was your soulmate? Wouldn’t it be alright then?” Allison asks earnestly, thankfully not focussing on Stiles’ loudly expressed disgust at a possible liaison with her beloved aunt.

 

Stiles shrugs and thinks for a moment before he answers: “Well, I obviously don’t believe that this is a foolproof system.” He doesn’t miss Allison’s eyes darting down to his forearm where he’s playing with his fork and though he knows that his soulmark is completely covered, he can’t help but tug on his sleeve self-consciously with his free hand. Although the unbiased, accepting way his wolf treated his soulmark has helped a lot, Stiles still doesn’t feel comfortable showing it around. He isn’t even sure if Allison actually knows what it is, but even if she doesn’t, she will at least have guessed that something’s not quite right with it. Stiles quickly continues before she can ask about it, though:

 

“But there’s a reason why there are so few matches with age differences of more than five years, never mind more than ten, and let’s be honest, it’s a good reason! So even if she turned out to be my soulmate - which - I  _ really  _ don’t think so - I’d be, I don’t know,” he searches for a word that won’t make Allison mad and defensive, but only comes up with: “careful?”

 

Scott, bless his heart, quickly interjects before Allison can react in any way: “Careful’s always good, isn’t it! Like that saying, ‘safe, sane and consensual’!”

 

Stiles snorts the sip of water he’d just taken straight across the table and Allison ducks away with a bright peal of laughter, her cheeks slightly pink. Scott blushes as well and glares at both of them half-heartedly:   
  
“Oh shut up, you two.”

 

 

His pup doesn’t return.

 

Derek keeps trying to tell himself that it’s for the best, the boy’s best, but now boredom is joined by loneliness and it’s getting harder to remind himself of that. His fur is getting thicker, preparing for winter and Derek can’t stop imagining his pup’s fingers running through it, playing with it, commenting on its thickness. He’d probably tug on it and try to braid it and Derek would growl playfully and let him.

 

But his pup hasn’t been in the woods since that afternoon.

 

At first Derek thinks of the boy’s leg and tells himself to be patient. The pup promised after all.

 

With the weeks passing in silence and solitude, though, he slowly loses hope. 

 

He stops waiting in their clearing and instead starts patrolling his territory again. He runs the perimeter first, including the area that he’d been unconsciously avoiding for the last decade. Where his scent is faint around most of the edge of the territory, it’s almost entirely gone around the house. The only trace that’s left is the scent sunken deeply into the ground from generations of Hales running along the same track.

 

So he makes sure to mark the ground there first, day after day, so that there can be no doubt that one Hale at least still watches over these lands - at least as far as his form allows him to. Then he starts to cover more ground each time, paying closer attention to who walks through these woods. When he was still feral he used to patrol and mark his territory, too, so his scent is strong in those parts of the forest already, mixed in with the boy's where they used to run together. But other than that, Derek-the-wolf only cared about keeping rivals out of his territory - not really hard to achieve with no other wolves living in California as the pup told him. He was aware of the paths humans had made through the forest of course, they were hard to miss after all, but the wolf didn't much care about them. 

 

Now though, Derek tries to keep track of who enters his part of the forest and tries to figure out any possible patterns. He isn't even sure why he's doing it, it's not as if he's planning to do anything with the knowledge, but at least it's a way to pass the time. Without something to look forward to, his days only seem to have gotten longer even though the sun is rising later and setting earlier each day. Without the boy's visits Derek has no way to tell which day of the week it is anymore and also no desire to. So he just runs along the perimeter, hunts to fatten up in preparation for winter and tracks innocent joggers through the woods. He doesn't actually follow anyone;  he lets his nose do most of the work. It tells him that the woman always running along the same long circular path in the late afternoon is running away from something, her scent usually soured by fear and anxiety. It tells him that the young couple that jogs together every couple of days has some favourite spots to indulge in some other recreational activities. It also tells him that the guy takes more than one girl into the woods for the very same reason. 

 

But then he smells  _ her _ . 

 

The wind just carries a whiff of her scent into the forest, but Derek would recognise that mix of fire, ash, and metal anywhere. 

 

Kate is back in Beacon Hills.


	7. Chapter 7

“Allison! Here!”

 

The shout comes from a woman leaning against a car parked haphazardly across two spots at the edge of the parking place. She’s blonde and gorgeous, but with that hard set to her smiling mouth that says that she knows exactly how she looks and isn’t afraid to use it either. Allison either seems not to notice or not to care because she just grins widely and takes Scott’s hand to tug him over to the woman who has to be her aunt. Scott in turn grabs Stiles’ arm and drags him with them before Stiles can try to escape.

 

Allison’s aunt - Kate - pushes off her car when they reach her, body moving slowly and in a sinuous roll that draws attention first to her hips and then to her breasts. Her smile is genuine when she embraces Allison and then turns predatory when she turns to face Scott and Stiles. 

 

“Well, hello there, cute and cuter!” she purrs, and Scott’s hand tightens uncomfortably around Stiles’ arm. “Which one’s yours, Allison?”

 

Allison’s grin looks ever so slightly forced when she tugs Scott forward slightly, joking: “Cuter obviously - sorry, Stiles!”

 

Stiles clutches at his heart in mock pain, ducking his head, inwardly glad to have an excuse to look away from Kate’s frankly unsettling gaze for a moment. She hasn’t done anything bad, not even really said anything bad yet - though really, ‘it’s not what you say; it’s how you say it,’ isn’t it? - and Allison has been full of nothing but praise for her cool aunt, but something about her just gives Stiles the creeps and he wants nothing more than to get away from her, promises be damned. Unfortunately Kate doesn’t seem to share his sentiments. 

 

She winks at him lasciviously when he looks up again and says: “Oh, cute is looking fine enough for me!” Then she takes a step forward and links her arm through Stiles’, leaning in close to stage whisper into his ear: “You won’t leave me alone with them, will you? They’ll surely be nauseatingly adorable and I need something cute to myself to distract me.”

 

Her breath tickling his ear makes him shiver, though not for the reason she seems to assume, going by the gleam of triumph in her eyes. If he didn’t know better, Stiles would say she’s flirting with him, but she’s more than ten years his senior and gorgeous despite all of her creepiness, so it’s not as though she couldn’t land someone her own age. Plus, Stiles knows he isn’t ugly per se, but neither does he look like someone that would make 30 year old women fall all over him. So, alarm bells ringing loudly, Stiles just laughs awkwardly and is pathetically grateful when Allison jumps in and says: “Oh yes, Stiles agreed to come with us, isn’t that grand?”

 

Stiles has never heard her use the word “grand” before, so his earlier suspicions are confirmed that she isn’t quite as okay with her aunt’s behaviour as she would like to make them believe. And if there was any remaining doubt, the terribly fake laugh she lets out next makes it painfully clear. It makes even Scott look at her in concern and Kate curls her fingers into Stiles’ arm so tightly that he can feel her nails even through all the layers. She doesn’t even seem to notice she’s doing it and Stiles adds “possibly unhinged” to the mental list of attributes he’s been collecting. So far it has such worrying items on it as “predatory” and “dangerous vibes like woah”. 

 

Allison bites her lip and then bravely forges on: “Where did you want to go to by the way, Kate? There’s this cute little café on Main Street -”

 

“Oh no,” Kate laughs, a tinkling little sound that seems as fake to Stiles’ ears as Allison’s laugh had earlier. “There’s going to be so many kids there! I know just the place where we won’t be disturbed!”

 

And the two thoughts warring in Stiles’ mind are: Has she forgotten that we are kids as well? And why does she not want to be disturbed anyways?

 

  


 

Kate takes them to a tiny hole-in-the-wall diner in the questionable part of Beacon Hills. It’s Beacon Hills, so how questionable it really is is debatable, but still, it’s definitely not the best part of town and not where Stiles would take his niece and her friends to lunch if he were the only adult in the group. He doesn’t recognise any of the faces here, has never seen any of them around town, at least not while going shopping or buying groceries or anything innocent like that. The only one who looks vaguely familiar is the guy sitting in the booth next to the toilets, and that’s not reassuring in the least because Stiles thinks he knows him from one of the wanted posters he sneaked a look at in his dad’s office. Kate’s voice draws him out of his thoughts.

 

“So what do you guys do for fun?” she asks, leaning forward until Stiles can see all the way down her top to the red lacy bra she’s wearing. They are sitting in a booth, Allison and Scott cuddled together in the middle and Kate and Stiles opposite each other at each end. And instead of Kate interrogating Scott like Stiles expected, all of her focus seems to have shifted to Stiles. Stiles doesn’t enjoy it, but he’s glad for it nevertheless, because her probing questions in the first few minutes - asking after Scott’s parents, his lack of a soulmark, plans for his future, all coming like rapid fire one after another - had almost driven Scott into an asthma attack. He’d had reached for his inhaler and Kate had lost all interest in him.

 

“Stiles goes for runs through the forest each day!” Scott says, grinning at Stiles proudly. “His stamina has improved a lot lately!”

 

“Oooh,” Kate says, drawing out the vowel until it almost sounds like a moan, “I love me a man who has stamina.”

 

She smirks at Stiles and looks him up and down, almost undressing him with her eyes. Stiles is suddenly filled with a really desperate need for a shower - alone. He opens his mouth to reply, but Kate isn’t finished yet:

 

“Met anyone interesting in the woods?” she asks, winking at him. And Stiles knows that some people go into the forest because dirt in questionable places apparently does it for them, but the only one Stiles ever meets is his wolf - and yeah, he’s not going there.

 

“Nope,” he answers, popping the p obnoxiously because two can play this game, “it’s all me on my lonesome out there.”

 

“Oh really?” Kate sounds insultingly disbelieving, as if there was no way Stiles could be telling the truth - he isn’t but that’s not the point. She leans in even closer and stares at him intently, as though she’s trying to dissect him and find out the truth by looking at his innards:

 

“No big bad wolves running around the Beacon Hills Preserve then?”

 

  


 

Kate entered his life when Derek was fourteen and within just a few, short months she managed to destroy everything he loved.

 

She was eighteen, blonde, gorgeous and practically oozing confidence, aware that every eye followed her when she entered a room and loving every second of it. And she’d chosen to return Derek’s stunned gaze, smiling brightly and dropping gracefully into the deck chair next to him, her forearms white and unmarked and openly on display. Derek tugged on his own long sleeve shirt self-consciously, all too aware that there wasn’t anything to hide under his sleeves. 

 

Kate followed his gaze down to her arms and let out a tinkling laugh. 

 

“It’s alright, ask! I’m used to it.” 

 

And with that she held out her bare arms to Derek, nodding at him invitingly when he looked at her questioningly. Encouraged, Derek carefully wrapped his hands around her wrists, noting how dark and big his fingers looked against her skin, like a man’s hands. He slowly stroked the space where her soulmark should be with his thumb, making sure that no plasters or make up were covering her mark. But it really was just pale, unblemished skin under his hands, and that bolstered up his courage enough to ask: “Did you not have your ceremony yet?” even though that wasn’t what he was really dying to know. What he was really trying to ask was “Does that mean I’m not alone?”

 

But Kate seemed to understand what he didn’t dare say nevertheless, because she shook her head and said: “No, I have. Three times actually. But nothing ever happened.”

 

“Oh,” Derek said, and, after an awkward pause, not really knowing what else to say, added: “I’m sorry?”

 

It came out as more of a question than an expression of sympathy, and Kate threw her head back and laughed that tinkling laugh again that reminded Derek of little bells rung by the wind.

 

“It’s perfectly alright, cutie. I’ve got to say, I prefer it that way! Having a name tattooed on your skin is just so - confining, you know? I’d much rather have a choice, be able to fall in love with a person just because I like them, than be forced into a relationship because of a name on my wrist. It’s also much more romantic this way, don’t you think?”

 

She ducked her head and looked up at him through his lashes and Derek forgot all about his potential soulmate as he agreed with her.

 

  


 

Stiles almost yells out loud in relief when he’s finally back in his car again.

 

The double date thing that they had going on only went downhill from Kate’s interrogation. After her question about wolves Stiles almost choked on his own spit, leading to a coughing fit that left him tear- and snot-stained and Kate looking disgusted. 

 

Allison and Scott tried to save the situation somehow, redirecting the conversation into safer waters, but it was pointless. Kate was equal parts intrigued by and fed up with Stiles, while Stiles was equal parts weirded out by her attention and completely over this afternoon. Thus, he bowed out more or less gracefully as soon as he was able to, doubly desperate to make sure that his wolf was alright now.

 

Stiles only stays home long enough to throw his bag onto his bed and change into something more suitable for running through the woods - and rolling around with a wolf. He’s oddly nervous; he hasn’t been to see the wolf in weeks and he doesn’t really know what to expect. The wolf has always just found him, but then he knew to expect Stiles, too - and look at Stiles, talking about a wolf expecting him. The weeks between their last meeting and now makes it seem like more of a dream - of the kind of mad hatter sort. In the end Stiles just decides to wait in their clearing and hope for - well, anything really.

 

He doesn’t even make it to the clearing. He’s barely off the beaten path when a slight rustle to his right is the the only warning he gets before he’s tackled to the ground. Stiles laughs and turns on his back when the weight that hit him lifts off slightly, ready to get a headstart on all the cuddles he has missed out on in the last few weeks. When he’s face to face with the wolf however, he freezes. Because the wolf doesn’t look happy to see him.

 

His wolf is growling at Stiles and it doesn’t sound as though he’s playing around.

 

  


 

Derek’s senses are at war with each other. 

  
His eyes are clearly telling him that this is his boy, his pup. But his sense of smell is overpowered by  _ her _ scent. The pup still smells like himself underneath, all teenage boy and cinnamon and thunder and lightning in the sky. It’s the scent of his magic, Derek has realised by now, even if the boy himself doesn’t seem to be aware of it. But the magic is exactly the problem right now - or at least part of it. Because the sense of magic surrounding the boy plus the scent of  _ her _ clinging to him has Derek’s instincts screaming ‘Danger! Impostor! Fight!’ at him. So far he has been able to control himself enough to keep his claws and fangs away from the pup’s all too breakable skin, but he doesn’t know how long he’ll be able to ignore his instincts. He’s already growling continuously at the pup, whose scent has flooded with epinephrine, eyes wide and staring at Derek who  _ cannot stop growling _ .


	8. Chapter 8

Derek lies to his mom for the first time in his life after Kate comes home with him. 

 

There’s just been no point in trying to lie to his mom; she’d be able to sniff it out in seconds - literally. But Kate wanted to see where he lived - “where you sleep,” she’d added with a wink and a playful squeeze of his bum that used to make him jump, but that he’d gotten used to over the last few weeks. So Derek had smuggled her in when everyone else was out of the house for once. He’d been willing to introduce her to his family, but Kate had smiled sadly and said: “They wouldn’t understand, sweetie; they’d just say you’re too young and forbid you from ever seeing me again! They can’t know about us; you get that, don’t you?” A tear had slipped from Kate’s eye and Derek had quickly agreed to make sure that everyone else was gone before he brought her over. He didn’t tell her that it was pretty pointless as everyone would be able to smell her anyways, because that would have raised too many questions, and he couldn’t very well tell her that he was a werewolf, could he?

 

So he brings Kate over one afternoon when he knows no one else is going to be home. He’d meant to bring her directly to his room, minimise the spread of her scent throughout the house, but Kate has other plans. She insists that he shows her the whole house, cellar and everything, commenting on the bars in front of the windows and how strong the door looks that leads downstairs. Derek mumbles something nonsensical about burglars and is glad that Kate can’t hear his heartbeat. The cellar doubles as a safe room for an out-of-control werewolf, but that’s not an explanation that he can give Kate. He eventually leads her to his room, where she teases him about his collection of fire trucks, making Derek blush in embarrassment. He knows the trucks are childish and he doesn’t want Kate to think of him as a child, he’s fourteen already after all! But he’s always wanted to become a firefighter and he likes studying how the fire engines have changed over the years. He’s even got some proper historic models in his collection! When he tries to explain that to Kate, she laughs some more, before saying: “Don’t worry, sweetie, I’ve always loved fire.”

 

  


 

In the end it isn’t Stiles that runs away, but the wolf. For a heartstopping moment, Stiles thinks the wolf is going to attack him after all, and for the first time ever since meeting him he actually feels afraid. But instead, the wolf turns and runs away from him. Stiles tries to go after him of course; he has long since accepted that he’s more than a little mad. But he doesn’t stand a chance against the speed of the wolf. After fruitlessly searching the forest for a bit and waiting in their clearing for at least an hour, Stiles admits defeat and goes home, disappointed and a bit pissed off. He didn’t even do anything! And not coming into the woods for a few weeks didn’t excuse that behaviour - and it isn’t as though Stiles  _ wanted _ to stay away. Really, it is all very childish, Stiles thinks and totally doesn’t spend the rest of the day pouting and pining, whatever his dad might claim. 

 

He’s still mildly pissed when he wakes up the next morning, but the overwhelming feeling that fills him now is actually sadness. He feels more lonely than he has since he met the wolf, abandoned almost. Scott, as self- and Allison-absorbed as he often can be, seems to notice his pattern of thought immediately and doesn’t leave his side the whole day, not even when Stiles is supposed to be alone in the detention that Harris gave him for no reason at all. As soon as Harris has confiscated Stiles’ phone and left the room, the door opens again and Scott sneaks in. He grins when Stiles’ mouth drops open and says: “You didn’t think I’d leave you alone, did you?”

 

Stiles closes his mouth again and grins back at Scott, feeling a bit lighter already. Scott comes and sits next to him, nudging Stiles with his elbow which leads to a short, fierce but silent wrestling match that Stiles totally lets Scott win, who predictably turns the final noogie into a hug, huge fluffball that he is. 

 

“Are you okay?” Scott asks quietly, “You’ve been off all day - was it because of yesterday? I know the sort of double date thing with Allison’s aunt was a bit awkward but -”

 

Stiles quickly interrupts him because no way is he going to let Scott feel guilty because of something that wasn’t his fault: “No, no! It was weird and Kate was -” he hesitates, it’s Allison’s aunt after all, but Allison isn’t here, so: “- a little creepy-”

 

“Oh god, I know!” It’s Scott’s turn to interrupt him and he sounds almost hilariously relieved: “I didn’t want to say anything to Allison, because, you know, but she really creeped me out! And what was it with all the questions?”

 

His face is so earnest, as though he truly expects Stiles to have the answer to that, that Stiles has to hug him again, inwardly glad that they’ve moved away from the topic of his bad mood.

 

“I have no clue,” he eventually says, shrugging, “she started out all focussed on testing you, and I guess that makes a little sense, you’re dating her niece after all, and she could have been making sure you deserve her, but then she got all obsessed with my jogging and there’s really nothing interesting to be said about that!”

 

It’s a complete and utter lie and Stiles is just glad that Scott isn’t looking at him right now because he’s sure that it shows on his face.

 

Unfortunately Scott knows him too well: “Did something happen on your run yesterday? I know you were excited to get out there again, and if it wasn’t Kate, and I don’t think it was your dad either…”

 

“Why couldn’t it be my dad? Perhaps I just had a fight with my dad?” Stiles tries to deflect, because how is he going to explain growling wolves  _ not _ being the norm, but Scott just scoffs and says: “You would have told me if you’d had a fight with your dad. You tell me every time you have a fight with your dad, even when I do not want to know, like that time you guys had  _ the talk _ and it somehow devolved into a fight about what the appropriate age is to buy restrainments for sexual purposes!”

 

“It was just in case! I don’t even have anyone to use them sexually on, so I should totally be allowed to buy them already!” Stiles defends himself and delights in the pained groan from Scott. 

 

“Oh shut up! Really though, what’s wrong, Stiles?”

 

Stiles takes a deep breath, hunting around for a believable excuse. He settles on a half-truth in the end, saying: “I just - had too many expectations about the run I guess, and I didn’t enjoy it as much as I thought I would and I’m just - disappointed I guess?”

 

“Oh, okay,” Scott says, sounding a bit sceptical, but nevertheless accepting, to Stiles’ great relief. “I hope it’s going to be more fun today!” he adds cheerfully.

 

Stiles twirls his pen between his fingers absentmindedly and mumbles: “I’m not even sure I want to go for a run today.”

 

He doesn’t add: “I don’t want to hear my wolf growling at me again as if he truly wants to hurt me,” but the thought is loud enough inside his own head.

 

“No, man, really?” Scott exclaims and he sounds so shocked and upset that Stiles stares at him in surprise. “You’ve been so excited about it, and so -  _ steadfast _ about it, running every day and stuff, don’t give up now!”

 

Stiles snorts, and if it sounds a bit wet, then no one comments on it: “Great pep talk, buddy! ‘Steadfast,’ though? Been hitting up the books in preparation for the PSATs?”

 

Scott shoves him in retaliation, but he’s grinning, too, so Stiles shoves back at him lightly. 

 

“Okay, okay, I’ll give it another try, if it’s so important to you, but if today isn’t better, then that’s it! I swear!”

 

If he gets growled at again today, Stiles isn’t going to bother anymore. He’s not mad enough to chase after wolves who don’t even want him to.

 

 

Laura lifts her nose and sniffs twice when she comes home, crowing: “Ooooh, does ittle bittle Derrie have a girlfriend?”

 

Derek feels his cheek grow hot and hisses: “Shut up,” at Laura under his breath, while sneaking a look at his mom. She’s frowning, brows knit together, but then her expression smooths out and she smiles at Derek: “Who is she? Her scent seems familiar, but I don’t think I know her, do I? You’ve got to let us meet her the next time, not hide her away! Oh, and stop teasing your brother, Laura, it’s not nice.” 

 

Derek is too relieved that no one seems to suspect anything to even stick out his tongue at Laura. He has to keep concentrating though not to get caught out in a lie:

 

“She’s just some girl I got to know at the pool,” he says, trying for cool, calm and collected. Laura is looking at him weirdly, so he isn’t sure how well he manages, but his mom is still smiling at least. “I didn’t want to hide her from you, sorry,” he adds after a moment. That much is true at least; he never would have thought to hide Kate from his family, but Kate is older and much smarter than him, so she surely knows what she’s doing.

 

“Alright, just come say hi, next time she’s over,” his mom says, ruffling his hair playfully, and disappears into her study without waiting for an answer.

 

Laura is still staring at him like she’s trying to figure out a maths problem, and maths is Laura’s best subject, so Derek quickly tries to distract her: “Caught anything cool?”

 

She’d just figured out how to keep hold of the full shift long enough to hunt small rodents and was ridiculously proud of every catch she managed in her wolf form. To Derek’s eternal annoyance she’d proudly present her bloody muzzle just to turn back and claim that she couldn’t help with laundry because it might ruin her ‘ _ manicure _ ’. The biggest thing she’d caught so far had been a squirrel she’d let run again.

 

“Just a bunny this time,” Laura shrugged, pouting slightly, “I tried to go after a deer, but it was too fast for me. I still have to concentrate too much on my paws - if I don’t, I just turn back to human - and believe me, you don’t want pine needles anywhere near your unmentionables!”

 

Derek flushes, not comfortable with Laura talking about her ‘unmentionables’ despite everything he and Kate have done together so far - but then it’s Laura! His sister!

 

Laura winks at him and then suddenly brightens, as if she’d remembered something good: “You can see the bunny! Cora named him Mr Slippers!”

 

“You let Cora see the bunny you killed? And she  _ named his corpse _ ?” Derek asks, completely flabbergasted. He knew his sisters were a little weird, and possibly a little bloodthirsty by human standards, but this is extreme even for them.

 

Laura scoffs.

 

“I obviously didn’t kill him, you brute, what do you take me for? I just caught him for Cora to play with him. And he’s fluffy and mostly white, like her favourite pair of slippers - so, Mr Slippers!”

 

She’d started tugging him outside during this little speech and makes a grand “Ta-da” gesture to go with the last few words, pointing at where Cora is indeed playing with a fluffy, mostly white bunny. Unfortunately her playing consists of either cuddling it enthusiastically or flashing her wolf eyes at it to scare it into holding still if it tries to run away, so Derek fears for the rabbit’s health nevertheless. He isn’t sure how fast bunny hearts are supposed to go, but that one’s heart is sure pounding away at a much quicker rate than the bunnies Derek has come across in the forest before. Laura seems to have come to the same realisation because she sweeps in and plucks Mr Slippers out of Cora’s arms, saying: “Okay, that’s enough, I’m sure Mrs Slipper and the kids are waiting already, so bye, bye, Cora, Mr Slippers has to go back at home!” She lifts one paw of the poor bunny in a small wave and runs back into the forest.

 

Cora stares after them and her lower lip starts trembling, making Derek dart in and grab her before she starts wailing - loudly. For being so small she has quite the pair of lungs to make her displeasure heard. He starts tickling her and it works well enough as a distraction from the rudely stolen bunny, even if he gets bitten a few times in retaliation. Cora still has her baby teeth, though, so he isn’t hurt too much - even if he plays it up every time to make her giggle.

 

They end up sitting on the grass together, Cora in Derek’s lap, playing with his left hand. She’s stroking across the indents her teeth left in his little finger, as always fascinated by how fast they disappear. So she bites down again and again until Derek’s finger is all wet and slobbery. Cora only stops when Derek’s sleeve slips down enough to reveal his unmarked forearm. Then she switches her attention to that, stroking the pale and smooth skin with all the focussed concentration of a toddler. 

 

“Will I be like you, Der?” she asks suddenly, lining up her thin arm with his, so that both of their forearms are on display. She’ll turn five in two months and mom has already made an appointment with Dr Deaton to do her soulmark ceremony then. Derek wants her to have a soulmark, a  _ soulmate _ , of course he does, but just occasionally, in the dark of his bedroom, under the cover of night, he can’t fully suppress the hope that her arm might stay blank, like his, that he won’t be the only one without a soulmate in his family. That thought immediately fills him with guilt, though, because doesn’t that make him a bad big brother, if he wants his little sister to be as sad and alone as he is? And then that thought makes him angry, because having no soulmark doesn’t have to mean being sad and alone, look at him! He has Kate! And she actually wants to be with him and isn’t forced into the relationship by some weird mark. And why does everyone think having a soulmark is so much better anyways? But then he remembers his dad gently stroking across his mom’s soulmark and he feels bad again and sad that he will never have that. So the answer to her question is much more complicated than Cora can begin to guess. In the end he settles on: 

 

“I don’t know, Cora-bora, you might be like me and not have a mark, and that’d be okay, or you’ll be like Laura and have a mark, and that’s fine, too. You’ll just have to wait and see!”

 

Derek has some very dim memories of dark scribbles on Laura’s wrist, but he hasn’t seen her soulmark in years. She used to wear it openly, but he doesn’t know what it says, as she covered it up before he learned to read. She started hiding it with bracelets and band-aids specially made to cover soulmarks when Derek came back from his first marking ceremony without a mark on his wrist. She’d been so excited about her soulmark and about learning the name of his soulmate prior to his ceremony, and it’s another source of guilt that he has made his sister feel bad about her soulmark, even if only unintentionally. Laura would smack him if he said that, though, so he mostly tries to put on a brave face - particularly in front of Cora. He wants nothing more than to promise her that she’ll soon have her own soulmark, that there’ll be one person who is just perfect for her, but he doesn’t dare, because indeed, what if she  _ is _ like him. So he just tries to assure her that she’ll be okay either way, that neither version is worse than the other, even if he doesn’t believe it himself.

 

  


 

Scott leaves after another ten minutes to make sure that he won’t accidentally come across Harris on his way back to free Stiles. Not that there was any danger of that, it turns out, because Harris is taking his sweet time. It’s already ten minutes past the official end of Stiles’ detention, so Stiles decides to check if Harris is still even in the school somewhere or if he’s forgotten Stiles and went home already. Thankfully the room he’s in faces the school’s parking lot and with all the students gone, it’s easy to find Harris’ car. Stiles is just about to turn away from the window to get back to his seat to wait until Harris deigns to let him go, when he sees Harris coming out from behind his car. He’s walking towards the school, but backwards, with his hands up in a placating gesture, as if someone is threatening him. And indeed, another person circles his car, striding towards Harris with quick steps, body language obviously proclaiming danger. 

 

It’s Kate Argent. She’s talking quickly and Stiles really wishes he knew how to read lips, because whatever she is saying is making Harris nod in acquiescence or shake his head in denial in quick succession. Stiles would love to know how to make Harris cower, all he ever manages is making him glower. They’ve come to a halt just at the edge of the parking lot and Stiles has to press his face to the glass to keep them in his sight still. He’d open the window, but he’s afraid of it creaking and them discovering him, so he makes do with what limited visibility he still has. Kate is leaning into Harris’ personal space and obviously delivering her final threat because Harris honestly looks as though he’s about to piss himself as he nods, quivering like a leaf in the wind. Kate throws her hair over her shoulder and winks at Harris, a gesture that’s disconcertingly out of place compared to her behaviour just a second earlier. Then she strides away from Harris, oozing confidence and triumph. Harris stares after her for a few long moments before turning to head into the school. Stiles throws himself away from the window, just in case Harris looks up, and hurries back to his seat, trying to calm his expression to hide the thoughts and questions churning inside of him.

 

What did Kate want from Harris?

 

What did she threaten him with that scared him so much?

 

And lastly, the question that makes the least sense because he has literally no proof to back it up with, but that nevertheless feels like the most pressing, most insistent one:

 

Does it have anything to do with the Hale fire?


	9. Chapter 9

Stiles doesn’t hurry into the woods this time. He’s late anyways because of the detention, and there’s no guarantee the wolf even wants to see him after the display of yesterday, so he takes his time and decides to shower first, even though he’ll probably have to shower again later after his stint in the woods. He’s feeling sweaty now already, though, and the shower gives him time to think some more about what he’d seen. Kate had obviously been the aggressor, and Stiles keeps racking his brain for what she could have on Harris. He’d say she knows about his terrible teaching style, but everyone knows about his terribly teaching style, and he’s still teaching, so that obviously can’t be it.

 

His mind keeps returning to the Hale Fire, though, and how his dad said that his suspect had some connection to Harris. Well, Kate obviously has some connection to Harris. And if she truly is the one his dad is suspecting, then her conversation, if it can even be called that, with Harris earlier today is looking very bad. He resolves to ask his dad whether Kate Argent is his main suspect at dinner tonight and resolutely puts it all out of his mind. There’s nothing he can do about it right now, anyways, so he’ll try to focus on one thing at a time instead. The one thing for the moment being his wolf and its strange behaviour. 

 

He’s never been as apprehensive going into the forest as he is today - he was nervous yesterday, yes, but that was a hopeful kind of nervosity. Today he’s just scared - of seeing his wolf again and realising he no longer is  _ his _ wolf. Stiles starts of at a regular jogging pace, ears perked to catch any noise that might possibly be a large wolf crashing through the undergrowth, eyes darting left and right to catch any dark glimpse. Unfortunately that means that his eyes stray away from the path as often as they focus on it, so he stumbles often. He feels each jolt not just as a physical sensation, but as a jar that reminds him that there’s no one there to catch and steady him.

 

By the time Stiles reaches their clearing, he has fallen twice, his knee is throbbing, and he has still accelerated to a full run. The clearing is empty of course - clear in fact, his brain supplies helpfully, and Stiles just drops to the floor and laughs hysterically. What the hell has his life come to lately - he’s running through the forest looking for a wolf to cuddle, and his friend’s aunt might well be a psychotic mass-murderer. Though the psychotic part may well apply to him, too, considering how devastated he is that the wolf no longer wants to cuddle with him.

 

As if he’d summoned him with his maudlin thoughts, there’s a huff behind him, followed by a cold and wet nose pressing into his neck. Stiles squeaks and whirls around as quick as he can while sitting on the forest floor. It’s indeed his wolf and Stiles throws his arms around them without waiting to see whether he’s going to get growled at again. Thankfully the wolf seems to be less cranky today, because he just licks Stiles’ ear, following up with a very wet swipe across his cheek and the side of his nose when Stiles doesn’t release him quickly enough to his liking. Stiles splutters and releases the wolf to wipe across his face with his right sleeve. The wolf takes the opportunity to curl up around Stiles in his favourite position, the bulk of his body to Stiles’ right, so that he can put his head in Stiles’ lap and still wrap his tail possessively around Stiles from the other side. Stiles scratches his nose where it still tickles from being covered in wolf saliva and settles in a bit more firmly against the wolf, lifting his right hand to scratch behind the wolf’s ears. 

 

“What was up with you yesterday, huh, buddy?” he asks quietly, the wolf’s behaviour a stark reminder of everything that was wrong the day before. The wolf obviously doesn’t answer in a nice, full sentence, but he gently butts his head into Stiles’ stomach, snuffling at the sliver of skin that appears when Stiles automatically tries to jerk away. The movement only presses him closer against the wolf and his shirt gets caught between them, sliding up above his belly. 

 

Before Stiles can pull it down again, the wolf licks a wet stripe across his bared skin and then rubs his head against it firmly, nose pressed into Stiles’ side. Stiles shivers and lets out a noise of disgust, pushing the wolf’s head away slightly, so he can rub his stomach dry again and cover it up before he gets covered in more saliva.

 

“Nevermind yesterday, what is it with you today?” he complains lightly, but only gets a huff in response and some more rubbing action. If Stiles had to guess, he’d say that the wolf is scenting him. That in and of itself is nothing new, Stiles’ nose might not be canine levels of great, but he can definitely smell himself - or rather can smell the wolf and the forest on himself - after a regular cuddle session, and if he can smell it then the scent must be overwhelming for the wolf. This however is going beyond any scenting Stiles has been subjected to before. It’s as though the wolf wants Stiles  _ covered _ in his scent, marked by it almost. Speaking of marks - the wolf’s current goal seems to be to get at Stiles’ soulmark; he’s nosing at it and butting his head insistently against Stiles’ arm. When he actually starts tugging with his teeth, Stiles hurriedly rolls up his sleeve. 

 

Wolf saliva and scent can be hid well enough with a shower and a run through the washer, but wolf tooth marks would be harder to hide.

 

 

Derek almost doesn’t show himself to his pup. It feels like he’s back at the very start, following the boy through the forest, hiding in shadows and keeping his distance. Every time the boy stumbles, Derek winces, feeling every jolt in his bones, knowing that they are his fault, that he should be there to catch the boy. He’s afraid of his own reaction, though, scared that he won’t be able to control himself again, that he’ll attack the pup and not stop before it’s too late this time. He almost reveals himself when the pup falls, though, but before he can move out of the shadow of the trees, the boy has already picked himself up and started running again. So Derek just keeps following him, feeling as though he should be keeping away, but knowing that he doesn’t want to and unsure whether he even can stay away.

 

Once they reach their clearing, the case becomes crystal clear. It’s saturated in their scents, sunk into the earth from the many hours they’ve spent there, rising up to surround Derek and cover him like a safety blanket. There’s no way he’s ever going to able to leave his pup, not fully, not even for the pup’s own safety. The thought scares him, to be so dependent on another being cannot be healthy and a little voice in the back of his head is asking him whether it’s even natural and reminds him of the sparks of magic buried deep within the boy, and another part of him is wondering whether he’d still feel the same if he wasn’t so utterly alone in the world, but none of that ultimately changes how he feels. 

 

So when the boy drops as if his strings had been cut and his subsequent laughter has a decidedly hysterical edge to it, Derek stops resisting and finally approaches his pup. He presses his nose into the warm, damp skin of the boy’s neck, drawing in his scent with a deep breath. The boy’s squeak is loud in his sensitive ears, but his hug more than makes up for it. It allows Derek to take in the boy’s scent to his heart’s content after all. Unfortunately it also reveals that the pup no longer smells like Derek - before his injury, Derek had scented him enough that even after a shower, wearing freshly washed clothes, the faintest hint of Derek’s own scent still clung to the pup. But now it’s all teenage boy, hormones, and sweat, and spunk, and Derek has no way to resist the sudden urge to leave his own mark again - and no plans to resist it either. 

 

He starts with a lick across the pup’s ear and cheek - saliva is not the strongest carrier of scent, but it’s better than nothing. It’s not enough, though, either, Derek wants to rub himself all over the pup, and that doesn’t work while the boy still has his arms wrapped around Derek’s neck in a vice grip. So Derek licks across the boy’s nose next. That is a double success, because it both adds more of his scent to the boy and gets him to let go of Derek, who takes the opportunity to wrap his body around the pup instead. Maximum scent coverage is definitely the goal of today, so Derek pushes his face into the boy’s belly, barely aware of the boy’s question about yesterday. It’s not as though he could explain what was happening yesterday even if he knew it. He only knows that the boy smelled  _ wrong _ , smelled like  _ her _ , filling Derek’s mind with blood, and ash, and fire, and loud, triumphant laughter that made him sick. So his only answer is to scent the pup until even the memory of the wrong scent is hidden underneath the strength of their combined scents. 

 

Licking seems to do the job best so far, so Derek nuzzles the pup’s bared stomach and licks a stripe across it. Satisfied with the results, and uncaring about the boy’s less than enthusiastic reaction, he zeroes in on his next target: the boy’s soulmark, the one place on his body that smells different, smells neither like the pup, nor like him and Derek combined, but rather like sparks, and magic, and Deaton of all people, and still familiar somehow underneath it all - it’s as though the scent is that word on the tip of Derek’s tongue that teases him because he knows it but he doesn’t  _ know _ it. Whatever it is, it taunts Derek now, taunts Derek with the knowledge that the boy is marked far more deeply by another than Derek can ever mark him with his scent, and though he knows it is a futile effort, he still almost rips off the boy’s sleeve to get at the soulmark hidden beneath it to try and overwhelm it with his own scent.  

 

The moment his tongue touches the boy’s mark Derek’s whole body relaxes. All of the tension that he wasn’t even aware he was holding just slips away, muscles locked tight since he first smelled Kate Argent loosening gradually, the iron fist holding his heart unclenching slowly until his breath comes easier again. Each draw of air drags in the combined scents of the boy, himself, and the unique scent of the boy’s mark. Each release of air leaves goosebumps on the boy’s skin in its wake, another, if ephemeral mark. 

 

The pup remains silent during Derek’s thorough exploration of his mark except for the occasional deeper breath. The relaxing effect that touching the mark has for Derek seems to extend to the pup, too; his posture, while never exactly rigid to begin with, turns into a slump, settling him more firmly into the curve of Derek’s body surrounding him. It’s a comfortable silence that surrounds them, relaxed and content, though there’s an undercurrent of melancholy, culmination, and farewell that does not just come from the undeniable change of seasons that colours the leaves surrounding them and chills the air around them and speaks of the imminent end to their time spent together on the forest floor. Derek curls up tighter around the pup and gently closes his mouth around the boy’s arm, not biting, just holding tight, and the pup lets him.

 

  


 

“Dad, can I ask you something?”

 

Stiles thinks that it was very considerate of him to wait until his dad had safely put away his gun and sank down into his favourite chair in the living room. His dad’s sigh seems to say that he doesn’t appreciate Stiles’ consideration as much as he should.

 

“Shoot, Stiles.”

 

“Woah, I never knew you were the ‘shoot now, ask questions later’ type, dad!” Stiles gasps exaggeratedly, making his dad groan and roll his eyes. He knows he’s stalling; his  _ dad _ knows he’s stalling, but he can’t help it; how do you politely ask: do you think my friend’s aunt is a psychotic mass murderer?

 

“Did you suspect Kate Argent to be the one that set the Hale Fire?”

 

Well, apparently you just come out and ask it. Stiles mentally curses his too often non-existent brain-to-mouth filter and just hopes his dad won’t call him out on it. Currently his dad is in no position to voice any complaints as he’d succumbed to a coughing fit after hearing Stiles’ question. When he doesn’t stop wheezing, Stiles goes and gets a glass of water from the kitchen. He puts it down on the couch table and helpfully pounds his dad on the back until he stops coughing long enough to croak: “Is this your plan B? Beat me to death when getting me to choke didn’t work?”

 

Stiles scoffs, relieved that his dad is joking again already, and sits down on the couch, crossing his arms in front of his chest: “Pfff, see if I’ll save your life again, you ungrateful little -”

 

“You better not finish that sentence, young man,” his dad interrupts him, voice still a little hoarse, but mostly recovered from his earlier shock. Stiles grins and nudges the glass of water closer to him. After a couple of sips, he puts the glass back down and clears his throat.

 

“Now what was that about Kate Argent, Stiles?”

 

He’s got his Sheriff face on, the one that means business, and Stiles automatically sits up straighter.

 

“You said you suspected someone of setting the Hale Fire and that Harris told her how to do it, and that you’d seen her around again for the first time since the fire. You never said whom your suspect was, though, so I’m not biased because of that!” he adds hurriedly. 

 

His dad is nodding along with his words, but doesn’t tell Stiles whether he’s right yet, asking instead:

 

“So how did you come to suspect Kate Argent then?”

 

Stiles almost blurts out: “Well, she’s just creepy, isn’t she?” but he knows that that wouldn’t convince his dad. He doesn’t want to pull his trump card immediately, Kate’s argument with Harris, but he needs to choose his words carefully, so his dad doesn’t dismiss his reasoning out of hand. 

 

“Allison first told me about her aunt, Kate,” he starts haltingly, wishing he’d thought to bring his arguments into order beforehand. “She said that Kate used to live here, in Beacon Hills, ten years or so ago, and then moved away, which fits what you told me about your suspect. Kate just recently came back to visit Allison and her parents, or so she says, and you said that you saw your suspect around town for the first time since the fire, which made you reopen the investigation, at least unofficially. So the timeline fits, but that’s of course not enough to make her a suspect, and I didn’t start suspecting her because she just happened to be here at suspicious times!” he hurriedly adds when his dad opens his mouth. “Okay, so that’s the technical, no alibi part, the next part is more circumstantial evidence that doesn’t necessarily mean anything for the case, but is still valid?” 

 

His voice rises on the last word because he’s unsure whether his dad will actually want to hear that, but his dad just closes his mouth again and nods at Stiles to continue. Swallowing hard and wishing he’d thought to bring a glass of water for himself, too, Stiles tries to bring his thoughts back into order.

 

“Kate took us out for lunch yesterday. Or rather, she wanted to take out Scott and Allison, and Scott was scared of being alone, and Allison didn’t want her to feel like the third wheel, so they dragged me along.” He falters, but then plods on after a moment: “She was - weird, creepy almost, just very bad touch, you know?” He sees his dad sit up straighter and hurries to add: “She didn’t actually do anything, just what she said, and how she said it, and her  _ looks _ . Nothing you’d be able to pin on her, and that’s part of what made me suspicious, because it was just so deliberate, premeditated almost? It was like she knew what she was doing, and that what she was doing was wrong, and that she was not only aware of that but did it intentionally and enjoyed it! I mean I’m not saying she  _ did _ start the Hale Fire, because I obviously don’t know that for sure; I’m just saying that I wouldn’t put it past her to start a fire like that with the full knowledge and even intent that it’d kill so many people.”

 

He really needs a drink now, and steals a sip from his dad’s glass, keeping a hold on it as he sits back again to continue.

 

“Okay, well, now to the actual evidence part. Or at least, actually suspicious part,” he amends. “I got detention today - no, I didn’t do anything; Harris is just a dick - and Harris put me into this classroom that faces the parking lot. He was late letting me go, so I went to the window to check that his car was still there and that he hadn’t forgotten me. He hadn’t; he was just busy - talking to Kate Argent. And by talking I mean fighting. She seemed to be threatening him - I couldn’t hear a word obviously, but she kept walking forward, like way into his personal bubble, and he kept stepping backwards, and he looked  _ scared _ ; I’ve never seen Harris look scared, dad, he just always looks smug, or at best pissed, because he’s just such a  _ dick _ , but whatever Kate said scared him. And eventually he seemed to agree to her demands or whatever and she went away and he let me go, and, yeah, that’s why I think Kate might be your suspect for the Hale Fire.”

 

Stiles wishes he could have ended that speech with a bit more of a flourish, but his dad seems impressed enough with it anyways. He’s rubbing his chin in the way he always does when he’s contemplating something, but doesn’t know whether to say it out loud yet. After what felt like an eternity, he sits up straight, puts his hands on his thighs and leans forward slightly to appraise Stiles.

 

“Okay, here’s what we’re going to do: I’m going to tell you my suspicions about the Hale Fire, and then you’re going to leave it the hell alone,” he says firmly, adding: “I know you’re curious, and at least somewhat invested by now, even if I don’t know why, but I’m serious. This is dangerous; this  _ person _ is dangerous; they’ve shown that they have no qualms killing people, killing children, and I will not have you in any danger, do you hear me, Stiles? I know that just keeping you away from it is not going to work, and I’m glad you trusted me to tell me your suspicions, and I will entrust you with my suspicions, and I hope that you’ll trust me enough afterwards to let me deal with it.”

 

Stiles nods reluctantly. He isn’t all that happy with promising to stay out of it, but it’s not as if there’s currently anything he can  _ do _ , and if he’s quite honest, Kate does scare him a little, with her blasé attitude, that he can easily see extending to murder and mayhem. 

 

His dad gives him another hard look, as if he can tell that Stiles’ acquiescence is at best half-hearted, but after another moment of silent staring he starts talking:

 

“I didn’t have any suspects at first; it seemed to have been a terrible accident, some kind of electrical fire, or a candle that didn’t get extinguished, horrible, but no one’s fault in particular. But then Laura Hale sat in my office, pale as death and hard as steel, and swore that the fire had been set, with the intent to kill the entire Hale family. She and Cora had only survived by chance. She couldn’t give me a good reason  _ why _ someone would want to kill them all, but she gave me a name: Kate Argent. So that should have been it, shouldn’t it? I had a suspect, the rest should have been just regular investigative work, but I kept hitting dead ends: the arson specialist ruled it an accident; the forensic scientist just said that the fire must have burnt very, very hot or something because the results she was getting weren’t making sense, and Kate Argent left town. I had nothing to go on but Laura Hale’s insistence that she’d smelled Kate’s perfume around the house that night, but that obviously wasn’t enough to arrest her for, so I had to let her go. I tried to keep the investigation going, but with no new evidence coming up and the old evidence being useless, I had to close it eventually.”

 

He falls silent for so long that Stiles thinks he’s not going to say anything else, but his dad isn’t finished yet after all. When he next speaks up, his voice is quieter than before and his face is almost frozen, blank, apart from his eyes, which seem to be looking right through Stiles eleven years into the past.

 

“You know, I never got that old cop saying that everyone has that one case that stays with them even after it’s closed, but then the Hale Fire happened. You were so small; you probably don’t remember any of the Hales, but they were very well known in town. They’d been living in Beacon Hills for generations, a bit apart from the rest of the population, living in the reserve, but always a visible part of the community, too. Talia Hale for example was on the town council and her husband coached the little league teams. For all of them to die - four generations of a single family, from Peter Hale’s three year old daughter to the 97 year old matriarch of the family - it was horrific.”

 

Stiles knows he’s staring, but the only other time his dad ever looks this broken is when talk turns to Stiles’ mom. His dad doesn’t notice, too caught up in his memories.

 

“I think I could have taken it if it had truly been an accident, or at least if I’d truly believed that. But to know that the fire had been set, that someone had murdered all of these people, this family in cold blood, and that I can’t bring them to justice -” he shakes his head and doesn’t finish his sentence. 

 

Stiles stays silent, too, fingers absentmindedly stroking over his soulmark and the small marks that the wolf has left around it. The small indents where the wolf had pressed his fangs into Stiles’ skin have disappeared almost completely already, but Stiles knows where they were and the reassurance that his wolf wants to mark him as his, despite his soulmark, comforts him. He traces patterns connecting the small dots while he waits whether his dad has anything else to say. 

 

He has - sitting up and finally looking at Stiles and also seeing him again, his dad says firmly:

 

“I’m not going to let Kate Argent get away with it.”


	10. Chapter 10

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter includes a description of the Hale Fire, so proceed with caution or [ask me for details](thedaughterofkings.tumblr.com/ask) if you are concerned about that!

The day Derek’s world breaks apart is a beautiful Saturday in September just after summer break.

 

There’s nothing to indicate that he’ll be feral and his family dead in less than 24 hours when Derek gets up that morning. He sleeps late, only the scent of pancakes wafting up from the kitchen waking him finally with its promise of chocolate and blueberries. Kate had taken him out the night before, to a club three towns over where no one knew them, saying that they had to celebrate.

 

When Derek asks what they are celebrating, Kate winks and says: “We are alive, Derek! Isn’t that reason enough to celebrate? Who knows what tomorrow brings?” 

 

There is a strange undertone in her voice that makes Derek wonder for a moment whether she’s hiding something from him, but a discreet sniff reveals no hint of sickness in her scent. Instead, she smells almost overpoweringly of excitement, so exuberant she’s almost drunk with it, high on life, bursting at the seams with it. She’s a maelstrom that Derek is caught in but doesn’t even want to get out of. Her fake ID buys them drinks and while the alcohol alone shouldn’t be enough to make Derek drunk, it makes him dizzy and slow, the lights flashing in front of his eyes hypnotically, the bass pounding insistently in his ears, his blood, until his heart tries to match it. Then Kate presses against him and the scent of her arousal is sickly sweet in his nose. It’s hard to breathe, hard to think, and Derek can’t do anything but move how her hands guide him to move. The night is a blur of lights and sounds and scents and Derek is alternately dizzy, sick, and overwhelmed. Through it all Kate is a bright flame, fire and ash and thick smoke.

 

Derek isn’t entirely sure how he made it home last night. He has a faint recollection of speed and Kate laughing as the air rushed past them. Her laugh has a mean edge to it in his memory that he doesn’t understand. 

 

His mom is waiting for him in the kitchen when he finally makes it down after a very thorough shower to get all traces of alcohol and smoke and sweat off his body.

 

“Hello sleepyhead,” she smiles and Derek ducks his head in embarrassment. “You came home quite late last night,” she adds, quiet admonishment in her voice that’s far worse than outright accusation would be.

 

“Sorry,” Derek starts and clears his throat, his voice scratchy and hoarse as if he’d inhaled smoke all night. “We missed the last bus,” he explains, his heart steady because it isn’t a lie - they just hadn’t even tried to catch it. He has gotten way too good at lies of omission and his stomach clenches at the realisation. 

 

His mom’s hand on his shoulder makes him jump; she’d moved closer without him realising. Her face is serious but kind when he hesitantly looks up at her and her eyes are warm and full of love that Derek isn’t completely sure he deserves right now.

 

“Derek, you are allowed to have your own little secrets, that’s okay. As long as you know that you can talk to me when you need to.” Her gaze is steady and Derek swallows hard to get rid of the lump in his throat, nodding wordlessly before darting forward when his mom opens her arms for a hug. He hides his suddenly wet eyes in her throat and breathes her in while her hands brush over his back in long, calming strokes, covering him with her scent.

 

“I’m proud of you, baby,” she says quietly. “Remember that always, Derek, I love you and I’m proud of you and the man you are becoming. Never forget that, baby.”

 

  


 

Stiles tries to act inconspicuous after the talk with his dad. Whereas observing Harris had been easy enough and even a little fun, Stiles does not want to raise Kate Argent’s suspicions in any way. Because while Harris is a dick and possibly an accessory to murder, Stiles doesn't think he's actually the type to kill anyone himself, not even his most hated student. Kate Argent on the other hand…

 

So Stiles does his best to act normal. Scott keeps looking at him questioningly, though, so Stiles might not be quite as successful at it as he might like. But then it's not as important at school - Kate's not there after all and Stiles doesn't think Allison is spying on him for her. They haven't had another double date thankfully, but Kate comes to the school most days to get Allison. Stiles tries to avoid talking to her as much as possible, but he can still feel her eyes on him, searching, judging, and somehow as tangible a touch as if she'd put her hand on him. 

 

If he can manage it, Stiles keeps out of her sight entirely, bidding Scott and Allison goodbye before leaving the school and taking the long way round to his Jeep, even if it means Scott giving him betrayed puppy dog eyes. Strangely enough Allison never questions him about it, and even distracts Scott to give Stiles a chance to slip away. Stiles has a feeling she knows more than she’s letting on, though he can’t be sure, as there really is no good way to ask her whether she’s aware that her aunt is a sick, murdering psycho, and what she’s planning to do about it.

 

But even sitting in his jeep, Stiles can somehow feel Kate's eyes on him. It's one of the reasons why he takes many different detours each day on his way into the forest, to spot and ideally shake off any pursuers. The other reason is Kate's unexplainable interest in his runs and her comments about wolves. Stiles can't make any sense of how she could possibly know about his wolf but the mere chance of her being out to hurt him is enough to fire up Stiles’ paranoia. So far he hasn't noticed anyone following him obviously enough to call it to his dad's attention, but there have been a few guys who followed him for several blocks before turning off. Stiles made sure to take some very bad selfies to catch at least a grainy picture of each of them. In fact, that might have been the reason why they left him alone. 

 

The only one who Stiles hasn't seen following him yet but whose eyes he feels most often  on him is Kate. It makes him jumpy, jerking around at every noise in the forest, the crinkling sound of leaves being crushed under a foot, the crack of a twig broken in half, the whispers of the wind like a sudden breath down his neck. But whenever Stiles turns around, there's nobody there. 

 

But instead of relaxing, Stiles’ anxiety only ever grows, simmering low in his belly, his senses simply trying to spread out further, to take in even more. There's no doubt in his mind that something is going to happen, something bad. And Stiles fully intends to be ready when it does. 

 

  


 

That night, Derek can't sleep. 

 

Cora is having a sleepover with a friend whose parents are away for the night and Laura is their babysitter. It had made for an awkward dinner with Derek as the main attraction, at least until his grandma had dropped the spoon and splattered everyone with sauce. She'd apologised profusely for the “accident" but winked at Derek when no-one else looked her way, so it probably hadn't been quite as accidental as it had looked. Derek was grateful for the distraction either way and he'd made sure to give her an extra large piece of pie for dessert. He hadn't eaten any himself though, so that couldn't be what sat so heavily on his stomach. 

 

Eventually Derek has to admit to himself: it's the situation with Kate and the secrecy around it that's growing over his head. The night before had made that clear. He hadn't felt in control at all, helpless against Kate and her will and while his mind had been too clouded at the time by whatever it had been she'd given him, he remembered enough to now know that he didn't want to relive that feeling. It's a hard realisation to come to - that he is not as old and mature as he'd wanted to think, but it's a relief at the same time. His resolve to take his mom up on her offer to talk first thing in the morning does much to untangle the knot in his belly. 

 

Just as he's about to fall asleep, finally relaxed enough for it, something draws him back up into consciousness again. He can't quite tell what’s wrong at first, everything is peaceful and quiet. Until he realises that it's too quiet, the sounds of the forest gone, as if scared away. And when he strains his ears, he hears footsteps, light, careful footsteps trying to not be heard. Carefully, Derek sneaks towards his window, cracking it open slowly, to be able to hear more, smell more. 

 

It takes him a moment to recognise the scent, because it can't be right, what would she be doing here? But it is clearly Kate out there, no doubt about it. So Derek swings himself out of his window, glad that his parents sleep on the other side of the house and that his grandma is about as deaf as a werewolf is going to get and a very deep sleeper to boot. If Laura and Cora had been home, sneaking out wouldn’t have been possible at all, with their rooms right next to his and their ears always pricked to hear whatever Derek is up to. But with them out, Derek manages to make it out of the house without any lights turning on inside, his feet hitting the ground with a soft thump after the last jump down. 

 

His nose tells him that Kate is at the front of the house right now and for a feverish moment, Derek fears she’s going to ring the bell, to introduce herself to his parents in the middle of the night. But she’d been so adamant about not meeting them, that that can’t be it. She’s got to be here for Derek and probably just got turned around with where his room is. He’ll have to get her away before anyone else wakes up. 

 

A few quick steps bring him around the corner of the house and Kate finally into his sight. She’s striding along the front calmly, but with an obvious purpose, a wicked looking crossbow strapped to her back, a jar cradled in one arm, from which she spreads something to the floor with her free hand. A block of ice suddenly forms in Derek’s belly.

 

“Kate!” he hisses, sprinting after her hurriedly, still hoping against hope that there is some innocuous explanation for it all. But his gut is telling him that something terrible is happening here, or about to happen, his nose itching, almost making him sneeze, as if he’d been breathing in too much dust or ash. 

 

The speed with which Kate whirls around shocks him enough to stumble a few steps back again and the only thing that saves him from being hit by a crossbow bolt at far too close range is the jar of what has to be mountain ash that Kate obviously deems more important than him.

 

“Oh sweetie, you really shouldn’t be out here at this time of night,” she mocks him, eyes sliding over him quickly and then tracking the darkness behind him, probably looking for more worthy opponents once she sees that it’s just Derek in his pyjamas. The pet name holds no warmth for him at all, and suddenly Derek wonders whether it ever really did. The realisation is slowly dawning on him that Kate is playing with him, has been playing him the whole time, and it throws every single one of their interactions into a new, unfavourable light. A low growl works its way up through Derek’s throat, and he can’t hold back his claws from slipping out.

 

“Look, kitty’s got claws!” Kate crows, walking backwards slowly, spreading mountain ash. “Or should I say - puppy?”

 

Derek snarls and jumps at her. But just before his claws can meet skin, she blows the rest of the mountain ash in her hand at him and Derek’s throat closes up. There has to be some wolfsbane mixed into the ash as well, working its crippling magic on him immediately. Derek stumbles backwards, coughing violently, eyes streaming with tears that make everything fuzzy and hard to tell apart. He tries to wipe them away but only manages to almost scratch out his own eyes, unable to calm down enough to retract his claws. 

 

Kate’s laughter rings out loud and clear through the forest. She obviously doesn’t care if anyone can hear her, not at all afraid of the family of werewolves sleeping closeby, and somehow that terrifies Derek more than everything else. His tears have subsided enough by now that he can see Kate is still spreading the mountain ash and Derek suddenly knows that no matter what, he can’t let her complete the circle. He can tell she’s almost there by the magic slowly rising up from the ash, pushing him backwards, towards the house. 

 

So with a desperate yell and no clear plan other than that he needs to stop her, Derek throws himself at Kate, actually managing to knock her over this time. They hit the ground hard and the impact drives what little air Derek had from his lungs. His vision is hazy and it takes him several long moments of frantically blinking his eyes to realise that it’s not him, it’s the air that’s suddenly thicker, filled with biting smoke. The wolfsbane in it makes his eyes water and his throat close up further. 

 

Kate shoves him off her and springs up, apparently completely unbothered by the smoke. She actually takes in a deep breath of the poisoned air and then starts smiling. Derek retches, and not just because of the smoke and wolfsbane. Kate’s smile is all teeth, sharp and white, and with all the warmth of a deadly blaze. She walks backwards, towards her jar of mountain ash, and Derek sluggishly pulls himself up, feeling as though he’s wading through snow, every move slow and cumbersome. His eyes are playing tricks on him, Kate transforming before him, monstrous and made of billowing black smoke. Behind her a wall rises up from the earth, shimmering and pulsating and burning Derek when he pushes against it. Kate steps through it easily, her mouth moving, speaking words Derek can’t hear, can’t concentrate on, because he can feel the bonds to his pack, his family fraying, disintegrating, and he can’t get to them, can’t help them. He pushes against the wall of mountain ash and wolfsbane, pushes and pushes, increasingly frantic, pulling out every remnant of strength he has left, eyes glowing, fangs dropping, claws lengthening, back bowing under the pressure. 

 

And as the link to his mom, to his Alpha breaks, the wolf throws his head back and howls at the moon hidden behind the clouds of ash.


	11. Chapter 11

The memories plague Derek whether he’s awake or asleep. During the day, he sees a tree and remembers chasing a squirrel up its trunk while Laura laughs, smells a particular perfume and remembers how Kate used to wear that. During the night he dreams of fire and ash, smoke and death. The only one who can chase away the past is his pup. But even he is different now, and Derek doesn’t know if it’s him, reacting differently to the pup because his memories have returned or if it is the pup himself, different somehow now than he was before Derek regained his memories. He is sadder, more withdrawn, and so much more anxious, jumping at the slightest noise, always looking behind himself as if perpetually afraid of being chased. It sets Derek’s teeth on edge makes him want to take the pup away and hide him in a den of their own making until he feels safe again, where Derek can guard him all the time. 

 

The only thing the pup never shows any fear of is Derek though and it fills him at once with pride and apprehension, because what if Kate was right and Derek really is the monster here. He still vividly remembers the pup’s scent souring with shock and fear when Derek growled at him and almost attacked him - all just because he’d smelled like Kate somehow. Derek had been able to control himself that day, hadn’t hurt his pup, at least not physically, but what if there’s a next time, what if he can’t control himself then? What if he’s what the pup should actually be afraid of?

 

It’s a cycle of thoughts that he can’t shake, especially as Kate’s scent still clings to the pup, some days so clearly that Derek has to bite back a growl, some days so faintly that he questions his nose and his sanity, seeing the ghosts of his past everywhere. And through it all, he still can't get around the block in his mind, the one that's keeping him from transforming into his human form. All he gets are headaches, from his increasingly frantic attempts. 

 

Something bad is going to happen and with Kate's scent clinging to him, Derek's pup is going to be in the middle of it and Derek doesn't know whether he'll be able to protect him in his current form. So he  ignores the pounding in his head and keeps trying. 

 

  


 

Stiles wakes up one morning and somehow knows that today's the day. Unfortunately this premonition only includes the knowledge that  _ something _ is going to happen and not  _ what _ , and “a bad feeling” is not going to convince his dad, so instead of running straight into the woods to find his wolf like his instincts tell him to, Stiles goes to school. 

 

He's jittery all day, and doesn't remember a single word that anyone said which doesn't bode well for his marks, but somehow he makes it through without bolting out of the building. That's his plan of action for the moment the last bell rings, but Scott thwarts it, grabbing Stiles’ arm before he can leave the room. 

 

Stiles almost bites his head off, nerves getting the better of him, but when he turns around, Scott is looking so worried that Stiles can't be mad at him. 

 

“Are you okay, dude?” Scott asks and, looking around them and lowering his voice adds: “You’ve been very jumpy lately and today you've been scratching your arm a lot. Is your soulmark bothering you?”

 

“What?” Stiles starts, but a glance down confirms that he has got a hand wrapped around his arm where his soulmark is hidden and has apparently been scratching at it without even being aware of it. “I didn't even realise,” he confesses, quickly adding, when Scott’s face only darkens further: “I’m sure it's nothing a good shower won't take care of, so I'll hurry home now for that. But I promise I'll go and see Deaton or your mom later if it doesn't get better, okay?”

 

Before Scott can raise any further objections, Allison comes up to them. She links her arm with Scott and smiles at Stiles, dimples on full display. 

 

“Do you want to come to the cinema with us, Stiles? I promise it's not a double date this time!” 

 

A shiver runs down Stiles’ back and he has trouble keeping his voice calm and light: “Oh, no Kate today?”

 

Allison laughs and shakes her head: “No, apparently she's got big plans for today. She wouldn't say what, just that she's completing something that she started years ago. She sounded really excited; honestly, it was a little weird! But anyways, so, Stiles, what do you say?”

 

“Not today, Ally, sorry. But thank you for the invitation and have fun!” He throws them a probably terribly fake grin and makes a run for it, ignoring Allison's confused questions behind him. Scott's going to come up with some explanation or excuse for him; Stiles honestly doesn't care. The news of Kate's mysterious, but exciting plans only makes him more anxious to check up on his wolf and assure himself that he's alright. 

 

He makes it home in record time, even while very carefully keeping to the speed limit, but for once all his prayers are answered and there's not a single red light or anything else to slow him down. His dad is still at work, so Stiles just changes into more comfortable clothes and makes sure his phone is fully charged before leaving again to head towards the preserve. He forgoes any other preparations - whatever's coming, Stiles doesn't think it'd be stopped by a set of matches or some band aids or whatever a good boy scout would have packed. Stiles was never good at this part anyways, always either overdoing the preparations or throwing himself head first into things without sparing a single thought for the consequences. Seems like today belongs to the latter category. 

 

The wolf approaches him as soon as Stiles is past the first line of trees, apparently uncaring that anyone walking or driving past might see him. He'd been antsy for a while, even if it had taken Stiles a bit to realise as much, given his own heightened nerves. At first he'd thought that he'd just been rubbing off on the wolf, or even projecting his own anxiety on him, but by now it's clear that something has set the wolf on edge and that it's not just Stiles imagining things.

 

Today something seems to have put the wolf on high alert and with Stiles’ own instincts going haywire, too, Stiles tries to keep the path behind him as much in his sight as the path in front of him. He can't shake the feeling of being watched and instead of getting better as they're heading deeper into the forest, it only gets worse until Stiles is turning around more than he's looking in front of him. 

 

Which is how he almost falls over the wolf when he stops suddenly, ears back and hackles rising, obviously listening to something Stiles can’t hear. Before Stiles gets a chance to so much as look around them, he is suddenly alternately tugged and shoved, until he starts moving in the direction the wolf wants him to, apparently away from the noise that Stiles still can't hear. He gets herded and hurried along and soon enough they're running at full pelt, the wolf making them change directions now and again for reasons Stiles can't understand, until they're lost deep in the forest. In between pants, Stiles wonders whether they'll ever find their way back again. He isn't sure Google maps is going to be of any help in this case. 

 

He’s completely out of breath when they break through the last line of trees and end up in a clearing which is dominated by a large tree stump in the middle, cut off at waist level and still somehow looming larger than life. Stiles expects them to race through the clearing and keep tearing through the trees on the other side, but instead the wolf finally slows down and eventually comes to a stop next to the stump. He turns on his heel, gaze taking in the entire clearing and the trees beyond, and then falls back towards the tree stump, a high whine rising up from his throat. Stiles stumbles and almost falls on the last few steps that bring him close again to his wolf and sinks down on the stump after looking around the clearing himself. He can’t see or hear anything but the wolf’s reaction has made it clear what is going on here:

 

“We’re surrounded, aren’t we, buddy?” he sighs out, hand slowly, carefully sliding into his pocket and tightly gripping his phone. He doesn’t know if anyone’s actually watching them right now, but just in case, he doesn’t want to cause any alarm. But before he can do anything with his phone - even just pull it out, a voice he knows speaks up:

 

“Well done, sweetie,” Kate mocks, as she steps out of the shadows of the trees, and Stiles sees the wolf scramble backwards, his high pitched whining getting louder and more urgent. It's obvious that he not only already knows Kate, but that he is utterly terrified of her. It's what gives Stiles enough strength to stand up again and step forward, hoping to draw all attention onto himself and away from the wolf. 

 

Kate's focus indeed shifts completely to him, but under her piercing gaze making him feel like the smallest prey that doesn't feel like much of a victory. But unfounded bravado in the face of an unbeatable foe is what Stiles does best, so he breathes in deeply and puts on his best shit eating grin. 

 

“Aren't you quite the cougar?” he returns, adding snidely: “A little too old to creep around the forest to prey on young boys, don't you think?”

 

Kate's grin freezes a little at the ‘old’ comment, but other than that she doesn't seem fazed by Stiles mouthing off. Her voice is sickly sweet when she replies: “You are indeed the prey here, Stiles, the little doe, the fast hearted bunny about to be torn apart, but I'm not the monster of this story, little red riding hood. I'm the hunter.”

 

A growl from behind him makes Stiles jump, but the wolf isn't threatening him, but staring at Kate, eyes glowing bright blue. It's enough to distract Stiles for a moment, a too long moment only interrupted by the click of the safety of a gun being disengaged. He whirls around, but Kate's gun is pointed at the ground still; apparently she's not seeing them as much of a threat. 

 

“Still don't want to transform, Derek? What a shame, I would have liked to see how you've grown up since we last saw each other!”

 

Her tone is almost conversational, a stark contrast to the threatening atmosphere that permeates the clearing, but what strikes Stiles most is her calling his wolf ‘Derek’. The name is familiar somehow, though Stiles can’t focus on figuring out where he remembers it from right now. And either way, plenty of people are probably called Derek. But how would Kate know what to call his wolf? But Stiles doesn’t get a chance to contemplate that conundrum any longer, nevermind ask her about it, because Kate apparently decides that the time for pleasantries is over now. 

 

She lifts the gun and takes aim at them, hand steady and sure. Stiles braces himself, but Kate doesn’t pull the trigger yet. She looks at them almost contemplatively, apparently completely unbothered by the fact that she’s pointing a gun at someone, safety off. 

 

“You know, I’ve been dreaming about this day for more than ten years,” she says. “I so hate to leave a job unfinished!”

 

Stiles starts - more than ten years, that’s when the Hale Fire happened, is she confessing that was her right now?

 

“What job?” his mouth asks before his brain has caught up. Kate raises an eyebrow at him and smirks.

 

“I thought you’d have figured it out by now, Allison kept telling me how smart you are! The Hales, dummy, I took care of that vermin. One little rat escaped, but I’m here to remedy that once and for all.”

 

She’s obviously done with talking after that, wordlessly dismissing Stiles with a flick of her hair and turning towards the wolf instead, who shies back even while growling. She raises and aims her gun at him resolutely and Stiles reacts automatically. He jumps in front of the wolf, stretching his hands out towards Kate in the universal gesture of defensiveness, and cries out:

 

“Stop, my dad’s the Sheriff! He’s going to put you behind bars for this - all of this! Lower your gun; you don’t want to do this!”

 

He tries to channel his dad as much as he can, but instead of firm Sheriff voice it comes out more like the panicking teenager he is and Kate isn’t swayed by his words either. She just laughs at him.

 

“Oh sweetie, your dad couldn’t put me behind bars for the deaths of an entire family, he’s certainly not going to for killing a rabid animal. And as for you - such a terrible accident, got lost in the forest and was killed by a mountain lion - or perhaps it was a wolf? Either way, your dad is going to thank me for bringing back his son’s remains and for killing the thing that tore him apart, so no prison bars for me! So yes, I do want to do this! Say bye bye!”

 

Without waiting for Stiles’ reply she pulls the trigger and suddenly everything moves in slow motion. Everything but the wolf that is. Stiles sees the bullet leaving the barrel, sees Kate’s arm jerk and absorb the backlash, but the wolf is a blur of supernatural speed, barrelling into him and pushing him down. Stiles stumbles and falls and as he hits the tree stump behind him the wolf’s paw lands on his arm above his soulmark, warm and heavy and as Stiles stares down at it, the claws rip through his sleeve and scratch four shallow lines into his skin beneath, exactly where Stiles’ soulmark is. For a moment, time seems to freeze entirely. But then blood starts welling up from the scratches, colouring them red, and as the drops keep flowing ever quicker, time speeds up again, until Kate’s bullet hits the wolf and everything snaps back into place, time running along at its normal pace again.

 

The wolf falls back against Stiles with a pained whine and while Stiles is still trying to find the wound in the thick black fur with his uninjured hand, so he can put some pressure on it, Kate is taking aim again. Rage rises up in Stiles at the sight, rage and fury and pain and fear and an overwhelming feeling of love. When he lifts his hand this time, blood dripping down from his soulmark, it’s not a gesture of defensiveness, but protectiveness. There’s a boiling fire within him that wants to break free, needs to break free, and as Kate’s finger pulls backwards again, Stiles opens his mouth in a voiceless scream and let’s it all out.


	12. Chapter 12

Derek’s mind is slowing down, his thoughts sluggish and slow. The bullet Kate shot him with must have been full of wolfsbane, which is now quickly working its way through his body. Without a miracle, he’s going to be dead soon. It’s a strange thing to realise - the imminence of his own death, and how unavoidable it now seems in hindsight. All of those years spent alone in the woods, feral, with no knowledge of even his own name, are in vain now; Kate has gotten him after all. 

 

A hand grappling at him desperately, putting pressure on his wound, a heart beating in overtime next to him reminds him that no, it hasn’t all been in vain. He has met his pup, and that has made every single second worth it. If only he wouldn’t have to die with the knowledge that his death leaves his pup at the mercy of Kate. And without Derek ever having had the chance to say even a single word to him.

 

It’s getting harder to figure out what’s happening, Derek’s vision blurry, an ever louder rushing sound in his ears making it difficult to hear anything else, his sense of smell overwhelmed by the scent of blood. Kate is a vision of horror in fiery red at the edge of his perception, but his pup behind him is warm and solid, his scent cutting even through the metallic tang of blood that fills the clearing. And as Derek feels himself fading from consciousness, the pup’s presence grows, his scent sharpening with that hint of sparks in the air Derek noticed when the met for the very first time. New is the threat of storm clouds in the sky, spreading until it all explodes outwards, away from them, leaving them at the epicentre of an invisible blast. Derek closes his eyes automatically and then finds them almost too heavy to open again. When he finally does, he can’t see Kate anymore, as if she’d been blown away by what must have been a desperate, uncontrolled burst of magic from the pup. 

 

Derek thinks that he’s glad to know the pup isn’t defenseless after all, even after Derek has to leave him, and then everything turns black.

 

  


 

Where time had seemed to slow down before, it is now running in overtime. Kate flies backwards as if punched by a giant hand and Stiles barely has time to draw in a shaky breath and comprehend that the boiling fire within him has somehow ebbed again before the wolf goes limp in his lap. Stiles’ heart stops for a brief moment of blind panic before he realises that the wolf is still breathing, his chest rising and falling with shallow, but steady breaths under Stiles’ hand. He still almost drops his phone in his hurried fumbles to get it out of his pocket, hoping that it survived his fall and whatever just happened to Kate. There’s a new crack across the screen when he finally gets it out, but it turns on without issue once Stiles’ shaky fingers hit the right button. 

 

His dad’s number is so deeply ingrained in his head that he’d thought he’d be able to punch it in while deep asleep, but it still takes him two attempts to get it right, panic rattling around the numbers in his head. 

 

“Please, please, please, pick up,” Stiles finds himself mumbling as the phone rings once, twice, three times. The arm with which he’s pressing the phone to his ear is shaking and he’s pretty sure he’s smearing his own blood against his cheek, but it’s already cooling and drying, unlike the wolf’s blood which is hot and wet under his other palm. When his dad finally answers, Stiles almost drops his phone after all and after a quick, painful fumble that he’s pretty sure opened up some of his scratches again, he starts talking immediately, ignoring his dad’s increasingly worried questions:

 

“Dad, dad, listen, you’ve got to come and get me,  _ please _ . Dad, she shot him, and he’s bleeding and I don’t know how to make it stop, so you need to come and get us, quickly, please. He’s still breathing, but he’s not conscious and she shot him and he just won’t stop bleeding, and please, dad!”

 

“Stiles, Stiles, slow down, son. Where are you? Who got shot? Is it Scott? And who shot him? No, that doesn’t matter right now, just tell me where you are and how badly you are hurt.”

 

His dad’s voice is carefully controlled, projecting calm, but Stiles knows him and hears the barely concealed panic behind the Sheriff façade. But he also knows that his dad is still holding it together for Stiles and that he needs Stiles to keep it together, too, so Stiles takes a deep, if shaky breath and tries to answer his questions.

 

“I don’t know where we are, somewhere deep in the preserve, but you’re going to have to try to get as close as you can with the car; we won’t be able to carry him far. I’ll turn my GPS on as soon as we hang up, so you can find us. And no, it’s not Scott, he isn’t even here, it’s my wolf. Kate shot him, dad, Kate Argent. And she confessed she’d laid the Hale Fire and killed all of those people, and then she fell backwards somehow and disappeared and now I can’t see her and I don’t know if she’ll come back, so please, hurry, dad!”

 

When his dad speaks again, it’s clear that he’s in full Sheriff mode now, pushing his personal feelings and fears aside for the moment.

 

“Stiles, we are on our way now. I still just need to know whether you are hurt. Can you tell me that?”

 

“Me?” Stiles asks and has to actually look down to make sure because it’s somehow hard to feel his own body and everything happened so fast that he doesn’t trust his own memory. It’s got to be playing tricks with him anyways, Kate couldn’t have suddenly flown backwards; she probably just walked away for some reason. But a quick glance reveals no other wounds than his scratched up soulmark, which is still bleeding sluggishly, so he finally replies:

 

“No, I’m okay, just a few scratches. She tried to shoot me, but he jumped in front, that’s why he’s hurt! He’s hurt because of me, dad, and I can’t let him die, I simply can’t.”

 

Without waiting for another reply from his dad, he hangs up and finally turns on the GPS. Then he puts his phone down somewhere beside him and presses both of his hands onto the wolf’s wound. Both of their blood mixes and drips down into the earth below, colouring the roots of the giant tree stump he’s still leaning against red. Stiles watches the drops and prays to whoever will listen for help.

 

 

Stiles tries to keep up his alertness, but with every minute that passes without Kate or anyone else appearing it gets harder and harder. The forest is quiet around them, as if it is holding its breath. That changes once his dad finally arrives - the heavy stomps of him and his deputies fairly seem to shake the earth and their shouts ring in Stiles’ ears after the silence before. He’s almost dizzy with drowsiness by now and actually shouting for help is harder to do than he thought. It’s as if his throat is sore, like he’d already screamed his heart out, even though that wasn’t the case. But even though it feels like he’s no louder than a newborn kitten, his dad soon breaks through the line of trees at the edge of the clearing and goes straight for him and his wolf, falling to his knees beside them.

 

“Stiles, Stiles, are you okay? Wait, I’ll help you get it off-” his dad tries to lift the wolf off Stiles’ lap and Stiles cries out in protest and does his best to fight him off while keeping up the pressure on the wolf’s wound.

 

“No! No, dad, he’s hurt, you’ve got to be careful! We need to get him to Deaton as soon as possible-”

 

“Breathe, Stiles, come on, in and out, that's it, nice and slow,” his dad interrupts, one hand pressing down on Stiles’ shoulder reassuringly. Stiles tries to follow his instructions, matching his dad’s slow and calm breaths, until his dad speaks up again:

 

“Now, what happened? Are you hurt? Do you need an ambulance? Does anyone else?”

 

Stiles shakes his head and lifts his arm to show his bloody soulmark:

 

“I’m fine, just some scratches. But she shot him, that’s what happened, dad! And we need to get him to Deaton; he won’t stop bleeding!”

 

When his dad doesn’t reply, Stiles looks up at him and sees that he’s still staring at Stiles’ soulmark, looking as though he’s seen a ghost. 

 

“Your soulmark,” he breathes and gestures towards the wolf. “He did that? Exactly like this? Is he - but he can’t be! Stiles, are you saying that your soulmate might be a wild wolf?”

 

“He’s actually quite tame,” is the only thing Stiles can think of to say at that moment, because his dad has just asked the one question that’s been buzzing around his own head for weeks now, too. 

 

  


 

How they make it to Deaton after that is a bit of a blur to Stiles. He faintly remembers his dad’s deputies checking the clearing and its immediate vicinity for any signs of Kate, but the only thing they find while Stiles is still there is her gun. His dad carefully pockets that and orders them to cordon off the clearing and systematically spread out the search for Kate. Then there’s flashes of several deputies carrying the wolf together through the forest while Stiles is helped along by his dad. It’s not far to where the cruiser is parked, but it’s an agonising trek, stumbling over roots, and Stiles flinching at every pained whine coming from the wolf.

 

Then they are suddenly standing in Deaton’s surgery, the wolf a pitiable heap on the gleaming, cold table, Stiles’ hands still putting pressure on his wound, even though he is slowly fearing that it is a futile exercise. The wolf’s breaths are heavy and the gaps between them getting ever longer, to the point where Stiles fears several times that he has stopped breathing entirely. 

 

And while Stiles is about to go out of his mind with worry, Deaton is the picture of calm, gathering his instruments with a speed that seems possibly glacial to Stiles. He has to clench his jaw so hard it starts aching to keep himself from yelling at Deaton to move more quickly. He’s currently shaving off the wolf’s fur over the wound, and Stiles is sure that is necessary to properly be able to see, but shouldn’t getting the bullet out be even more important? And what about the blood loss? Shouldn’t he be doing something about that? 

 

Just as Stiles is about to fly off the handle, patience worn too thin, Deaton swaps the razor for a pair of tweezers and gets out the bullet with a few sure movements. He drops it into a bowl and spares it no further glance, looking at Stiles and his dad instead.

 

“I need a bullet exactly like this one, if you want him to live, and I need it now,” he says calmly and Stiles opens his mouth ready to scream at him because where does he think they’ll produce that magic bullet from? But his dad is quicker than him and asks: “Would another bullet from the same gun work? Because I’ve got that here.”

 

Deaton simply inclines his head and waits for Stiles’ dad to provide the gun and the requested bullet. Stiles is honestly surprised that his dad isn’t asking any further questions - he surely has them; Stiles certainly does! - but he’s quietly grateful for it, because it means things are moving forward with no further delays. The wolf is no longer bleeding as heavily as he did in the woods, but now the blood looks almost black and too thick somehow, and that can’t be healthy either. Perhaps Deaton’s special bullet will be able to fix that, though Stiles couldn’t even begin to guess how. This isn’t a case where fighting fire with fire is going to work after all; you can’t heal a bullet wound by shooting at it again. But Deaton is not interested in the gun at all anyways, just in the bullet. He cracks it open and before Stiles knows what’s happening, Deaton is pushing some kind of ash into the wound and his wolf’s eyes fly open with a yowl. They are glowing electric blue and flitting around the room as if looking for something or someone in particular. Stiles steps forward automatically and the wolf’s gaze snaps to him and doesn’t waver again. To Stiles it looks like a silent scream for help, and so he demands: “Why are you just hurting him more? You were supposed to help him, not make things worse!”

 

But Deaton just retorts, cryptic as ever: “Sometimes the greatest hurts are the greatest healers. If you want him to live, you’ll let me work.” 

 

There’s nothing Stiles can say to that, and so he has to watch helplessly as Deaton pushes ash into his wolf’s wound and sets it on fire. The wolf’s subsequent howl breaks Stiles’ heart and he finally closes the distance between him and the wolf again, pressing in close where he’d stepped away earlier to give Deaton room to work. One hand on his wolf’s head, the other stroking across his quivering flank, he’s about to command that Deaton stop whatever he’s doing, cryptic warnings be damned. 

 

But Deaton has already turned away from them and picked up the phone, punching in a number from memory. While he waits for the call to be picked up, the only sound in the surgery are the muffled beeps coming out of the phone and the wolf’s exhausted pants. Then a voice Stiles doesn’t recognise says “Hello?” on the other end of the line and Deaton states:

 

“Laura Hale? You need to take the very first flight you can get back to Beacon Hills. Do not tarry.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> No, this isn't the last chapter yet! 
> 
> Sorry, I miscalculated and thought this fic would end up being 12 chapters long - turns out it'll be 13 after all! So there is one more chapter after this one, hopefully posted tomorrow (if Christmas doesn't get in the way). 
> 
> Thank you all so much for all your kudos and bookmarks and wonderful comments this fic has already gotten so far, I've seen them all and I am very grateful for each and every one!


	13. Chapter 13

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm sorry about the small delay, but this is finally it, the last chapter of Fully Grown! Thank you all for reading along and Merry Christmas!

Stiles spends most of his waking hours until Laura Hale arrives with his wolf. He’d spend all day and night at Deaton’s if his dad allowed it, but apparently his dad has no heart and forbids it despite Stiles’ very insistent whining. At least he tells Stiles that Kate was eventually found, quite a length away from the clearing and unconscious, though with no other injuries. One of the deputies had literally stumbled over her, and Stiles has to admit he’s petty enough to hope that whoever found got a good kick in, however accidental. She was taken in for questioning once it was clear she wasn’t hurt and Stiles’ dad assures him that he’ll bring charges against her for the murder of the Hale family, based on her own confession to Stiles. Stiles hopes that she’ll spend the rest of her life behind bars. Even that still doesn’t seem like enough punishment for her heinous crimes.

 

To Stiles’ surprise and delight, the wolf steadily seems to be getting better, though whether despite or because of Deaton’s questionable methods Stiles wouldn’t be able to tell. He’s still not well enough to leave the vet’s practise yet, though, so Stiles has to depend on Deaton’s opening hours if he wants to see him. The wolf sleeps a lot at the moment, the healing clearly requiring a lot of his energy, so they spend most of their time cuddled together on a huge couch Deaton has in one of the side rooms. 

 

After the last minute surgery, Stiles had tried to refuse to leave the wolf at all, but his dad had been categorically against him staying in Deaton’s practice and Deaton had promised him that he’d give the wolf a sleep-inducing drug anyways, to help speed along the healing, and that he’d stay asleep at least until Stiles would be able to come back. Then he’d finally, on Stiles’ dad’s insistence, taken a look at Stiles’ scratched up soulmark, muttered a completely unhelpful “Interesting” and then disinfected the wounds and wrapped Stiles’ arm in some gauze to protect it. Finally he’d said that he’d do some research and perhaps a few more tests and then he’d come back to them if he has some new findings. No amount of nattering could get him to say once and for all whether the scratches confirm that the wolf is Stiles’ soulmate, though, never mind to reveal what Laura Hale had got to do with it all and why she needed to come so quickly.

 

“It is not my place to say,” was his only answer. “You’ll have to ask her, ask  _ them _ yourself.”

 

Stiles isn’t sure what he means by “them”, Laura and who? The wolf? Sure, Stiles could ask him, but it’s not as if he’d answer! At least not in full sentences. The wolf seems to be more interested in Stiles’ soulmark than anything else, anyways. The first day he’d still been too weak to do more than snuffle at it, but that has since turned into to licks and even gentle, loving bites. Where the wolf’s reaction to Stiles’ soulmark had been almost aggressive before - never to the point of actually hurting Stiles, but strangely jealous somehow, he now appears to be possessive of it. It doesn’t really help Stiles’ conviction that his soulmate is a wolf - his wolf. And somehow that isn’t even the weirdest thing that has happened to Stiles lately.

 

  


 

Derek never expected to wake up again. Shot with a wolfsbane bullet by the woman who had professed out loud her desire to kill his entire family and succeeded in most cases, lost in the woods with only his pup for protection, face to face with a remorseless Kate hell-bent on killing them both - when he lost consciousness he was ready to face death with his head held high. But apparently death did not want to see him yet. 

 

Waking is thus a strange experience - he’s half-convinced at first that the after-life has the form of Deaton’s practice, a place he hasn’t been to in more than ten years, but which is familiar nevertheless, the overwhelming scents of antiseptic and cat piss a hard to forget combination. But then his other senses slowly return, and the sound of a heart as always beating slightly too fast and the touch of a gentle hand combing through his fur tell him that no, he isn’t dead yet. Against all odds he has somehow survived, as has his pup, and they both seem to be in relative safety, as far as Derek can tell right now. With that soothing realisation, Derek allows his grip on consciousness to loosen again, this time slipping into a natural sleep, lulled by the presence of his pup and the sense of safety that brings.

 

  


 

Laura only needs two days to make it from New York City to Beacon Hills. It’s probably breaking several records, especially considering how everything was last-minute. Stiles doesn’t want to know what this whole trip costs! The main  mystery remains, though: why she’s even coming. Stiles has a theory, but that is so outlandish that it can’t actually be true. 

 

He has been working on it ever since Kate called his wolf “Derek”. The name had seemed familiar at the time but in the midst of his panic he hadn’t been able to remember where he’d last heard it. The memory has since returned, though: the youngest Hale son, Laura’s brother, the one whose remains had never been identified or even found, he had been called Derek. The slightly weird, but still somewhat plausible explanation is that the Hales had a wolf as a pet that they called by the same name as their youngest son and that Deaton has now called Laura to give him back to her. 

 

The explanation that is less plausible, but makes much more sense of every strange thing Stiles has experienced since meeting his wolf is: werewolves. 

 

His wolf is called Derek, just like the youngest Hale son,  _ because _ he is the youngest Hale son. He somehow escaped Kate’s furious blaze and has been living in the woods as a wolf ever since. Whether he chooses not to change back to human or simply can’t change back for whatever reason, Stiles can’t guess. Either way, if werewolves truly is the answer, then Laura is on the way back to Beacon Hills to meet her brother she’d presumed was dead for more than ten years. Stiles doesn’t know if he should be happy for her for getting him back, or sad for them both for all of those lost years in between. 

  
  


Laura arrives with no prior notice. Stiles wouldn’t have even known she was coming until she stood in the room, if the wolf hadn’t suddenly sat up, ears perked up and nostrils flaring, obviously hearing and smelling something Stiles can’t perceive with his mere human senses. He seems to be apprehensive, scared almost, but if the werewolf theory is true and this is his sister, who he hasn’t seen for more than ten years and who thought he was dead, then Stiles does get the apprehension. A certain amount of nervosity is surely normal in that less than normal situation.

 

It takes another minute until Stiles can hear Laura, too - or rather, her yelling. 

 

“Deaton, that mountain ash gate better be open when I get to it or you can build a new one!”

 

And for the first time ever, Stiles sees Deaton actually hurry. He has barely made it from his office to the front, before a tall woman storms into the back room, gaze immediately zeroing in on the wolf. 

 

“Derek,” she breathes and falls to her knees in front of him, slowly stretching out her hand towards the wolf. There’s a moment of frozen stillness, and then his wolf lets out a small whine and Laura throws her arms around him, hiding her face in his fur, but it’s not enough to muffle her sobs entirely. Stiles bites his lip and blinks away the tears that have sprung into his own eyes. If he is feeling emotional even just witnessing their reunion, then how must they feel?

 

After a while they separate, and Laura cups the wolf’s head in her hands. 

 

“Derek, look at you!” she says wonderingly and lets out a wet laugh. “Looks like you mastered the full shift before me after all!”

 

Stiles’ next breath goes down the wrong pipe and he barely manages to suppress a cough, not wanting to disturb them. But apparently he’s not quick or quiet enough, because suddenly Laura’s focus shifts to him, eyes narrowing suspiciously.

 

“Who are you? What are you doing here?” she demands, eyes flitting over his face, nostrils flaring. “Your scent is all over him; what did you do to him?”

 

Stiles gapes at her, shocked silent by this sudden, unexpected attack. But his wolf reacts for him instead, hackles rising and moving in between him and Laura, growling at her. Laura rears back and then her eyes blink close and when they open again, they are glowing bright red. Stiles gulps and feels like a rabbit caught in the headlights. The stand-off between his wolf and Laura is interrupted by a sharp voice coming from the door.

 

“Miss Hale, control yourself!”

 

Laura whirls around and actually growls at Deaton, who just stares back at her calmly, and Stiles thinks slightly hysterically: ‘Werewolves it is, then.’

 

“Oh, we’ll talk soon enough, Mr Deaton, believe me, I’ve got plenty of questions for you and I’d better like your answers! I’d keep quiet until then if I were you,” she threatens and to Stiles’ surprise Deaton actually backs off, inclining his head and stepping out of the room again. However, that leaves Stiles alone with two angry presumed werewolves, which he doesn't appreciate very much. 

 

When Laura turns back around to face him, though, she closes her eyes and breathes in and out deeply a few times. When she opens her eyes again, they are no longer glowing red, but back to a dark brown. 

 

“I'm sorry,” she says, and it sounds like she means it, too. “I shouldn't have yelled at you. Can we start over again? I'm afraid I'm a little frazzled right now.”

 

She stretches her hand out and smiles at him apologetically. Stiles hesitates but when his wolf doesn't start growling again, he reaches out and shakes her hand. 

“Hi, I'm a little frazzled, too, and also I’m pretty sure I accidentally befriended a werewolf?”

 

His wolf huffs next to him, but it sounds amused and pleased, so Stiles takes that as a yes. Laura bares her teeth at the wolf playfully and begs Stiles:

 

“I don't think I can convince you to forget that, can I?”

 

Stiles snorts and shakes his head. 

 

“No can do, sorry! This explains  _ so much _ and that knowledge is firmly ingrained in me now. And anyways, I've got the wounds to prove it!”

 

He holds his wrapped up arm up as evidence and Laura's hand shoots forward and grabs his wrist in a tight grip. The wolf growls deep in his throat and Stiles freezes. But Laura doesn't do anything, she just stares at Stiles’ hidden soulmark wonderingly. Her nostrils flare again and Stiles thinks that the werewolf thing is really obvious once you know what to look for. 

 

“Is that - Are you?” Laura starts and then gathers herself visibly: “Can you show me your soulmark? Please?”

 

Stiles swallows and then starts taking his bandages off. The scratches have scabbed over by now and Stiles can already tell that his soulmark isn’t going to look much different in the long run - only the scars will be real now, not just produced by soulmark magic. He expects Laura to comment on the shape of his soulmark - it’s about as far removed from the typical name soulmark as Stiles can imagine after all. But Laura just stretches out her hand until her fingertips are almost touching his soulmark. And then suddenly her nails transform into claws and she traces Stiles’ soulmark with them, carefully keeping a hair’s breadth distance, never actually touching him. When she reaches Stiles’ palm, she retracts her claws and hums thoughtfully.

 

“I see,” she says cryptically, and adds: “I guess that means you’d better stay for this next bit.”

 

She doesn’t wait for Stiles to react, but kneels down again in front of his wolf - or Derek, as Stiles should probably start calling him.

 

“Derek, I want you to transform back now,” she says firmly, but the wolf doesn’t react, at least not outwardly as far as Stiles can tell. “Derek, please transform back,” she repeats, flashing her eyes at him, red and insistent. This time the wolf whines, but nothing else happens. Stiles steps forward and puts his hand on his wolf’s neck, ready to tell Laura off for trying to force the apparently impossible, but before he can open his mouth, Laura says: “I’m sorry, Derek, it’s our last resort; you know I wouldn’t do it otherwise.”

 

Then she repeats herself a third time, eyes glowing red and voice a reverberating roar:

 

“Derek Hale, transform back into your human form  _ now _ !”

 

And under Stiles’ hand, fur becomes skin.

 

  


 

Derek almost doesn’t trust his nose when he catches her scent.

 

Laura’s appearance drives home how many years have passed since he last saw her. In his memory she is seventeen still, barely older than his pup is now, but in reality she has become a woman, a woman who looks strikingly like their mom. It quickly becomes clear that she hasn’t just inherited their mom’s looks, but also the Alpha spark. It calls to Derek’s wolf, but he isn’t pack, no longer, not quite, not yet. There are too many years between them, too much distance for him to automatically accept Laura as his Alpha. He doesn’t expect it to take much though, already he can feel his senses sharpening in her presence, feels himself become more beta than omega again, feels the pack bonds between them regrowing, forming anew. 

 

When Laura attacks his pup though, his instincts are warring with each other. Laura is family, and the closest thing he has to an Alpha right now, but the pup is the closest thing he has to pack currently. He’s also the one more in need of protection at the moment, so Derek growls warningly at Laura. The pup might have magic, a very strong spark if his instinctive outburst that blew away Kate is anything to go by, but Derek knows he isn’t trained, suspects that he isn’t even fully aware of his own powers yet, so he is no real threat to Laura.

 

Thankfully Laura composes herself again quickly, though Derek’s composure is shaken in turn when she turns her focus to the pup’s soulmark instead. These four scratches are the representation of the mark Derek has left and will leave on his pup; they are the sign that he’s the boy’s soulmate, even in this form. And while he regrets having hurt the pup, he cannot regret the wounds themselves.

 

Laura soon draws his attention again, this time by asking him to transform back. If he’d had a working tongue, he’d have been able to tell her that he already tried that, but if he’d had a working tongue then they wouldn’t even been having any issue. So he tries again, but with no more success than he’d had alone in the forest. When she flashes her eyes at him, he can feel his wolf trying to obey his Alpha, but it’s not enough to actually transform back. He lets out a whine of frustration, afraid that he truly is stuck in this form forever, that his pup is stuck with a wolf for a soulmate forever, and then a hand settles on his neck. 

 

His pup’s presence surrounds him, his spark dancing over Derek’s skin, and as Laura commands him one last time, using her Alpha roar this time, Derek feels the block that’s been keeping his shift from him breaking. In fact, it feels as though his entire body is breaking in half, bones cracking, skin shifting, fur receding and hair growing. It’s not as smooth a transformation as his mom used to make it look - Derek feels half wolf, half man for several long, panicky moments where he isn’t sure whether he’ll manage to transform back all the way and is afraid he’s going to get stuck in between instead. 

 

But then he opens his eyes and suddenly sees colours again, the red of Laura’s eyes, the green of Deaton’s painted wall, and when he turns around, the amber, almost gold of his pup’s wide, astonished eyes. 

 

  


 

Stiles knows he’s gaping, but he can’t seem to stop. His wolf has disappeared, and instead of him a man now sits at his feet, shaggy and long haired, unkempt beard and slightly wild, multi-coloured eyes. It’s Derek, Derek Hale, Stiles’ soulmate. A werewolf.

 

Laura gathers herself more quickly than he does, grabbing a clean towel from Deaton’s shelf for Derek to cover himself with and then wrapping her arms around him in a hug that almost topples them both over. She whispers something into Derek’s ear, but Stiles’ hearing isn’t good enough to make out what she’s saying. Whatever it is, it makes him laugh, voice hoarse and husky. Laura presses a kiss to his cheek and when she lets go of him, Stiles can see that her eyes are wet. Her voice is steady though as she says:

 

“I still have a bone to pick with Deaton, so I’ll leave you two alone to talk. I’m sure you’ve got plenty to say.”

 

But Stiles can’t think of a single word to say once she leaves the room. He’d never been speechless when in the presence of the wolf before, at least not like this. But every single thought seems to have been wiped from his head. So instead of talking, he sinks to his knees in front of his wolf,  _ Derek _ , and slowly takes his hand. Derek’s nails are long, as unkempt as the rest of him, speaking of how long he’s only known the forest, the wild, and almost look like claws. Unable to help himself, Stiles thus takes Derek’s fingers and positions them over his soulmark, one by one over each long scratch. When he lets go, Derek drags his nails along Stiles’ forearm, from elbow to wrist, like his claws had cut through Stiles’ skin, like his marks had appeared during the marking ceremony. He’s careful enough that the wounds don’t open up again, but Stiles’ mark tingles nevertheless, itching and prickling in the wake of Derek’s touch, clearly reacting to him.

 

“Mine.”

 

Derek’s voice is hoarse, little more than a rasp after years of disuse, but clear nevertheless.

 

“Your marks,” Stiles agrees, and adds: “My soulmark,” biting his lip nervously to keep in everything else that wants to break free too. Derek’s hand has slipped around and is gently holding onto his wrist now, thumb rubbing across the soft skin on the inside, just where his soulmark ends. It gives Stiles the courage to continue after all: “My soulmate?”

 

He’d like to be able to put it as a statement rather than a question, but too many hellhound jokes and years worrying about the identity or even existence of his soulmate have marked him in less tangible ways. The hope that he has finally found his soulmate only makes it worse. His wolf is smiling though, and nodding, and when his mouth opens, Stiles believes he knows his answer.

 

  


 

“Who are you?” Derek asks, sentences harder to get out than single words. That his brain has been thinking in full sentences again for a while now doesn’t seem to matter to his throat. He’s still trying to remember how they are both supposed to work together. 

 

The whole place stinks overwhelmingly of antiseptics, and blood, and  _ cat piss _ , but the sharp tang of hurt, disappointment, and embarrassment that suddenly floods his pup’s scent is hard to miss. His pup’s shoulders slump and he’s no longer looking excited, his eyes no longer bright, but dark and sad, his voice small as he says:

 

“Oh, sorry. I thought - never mind.” 

 

He stands up again, wrist slipping from Derek’s hold, Derek jumps up and quickly grabs his hand again, because this isn’t what he wanted.

 

“No, wait, that’s not what I meant!” he says desperately, even though it makes his throat ache fiercely, quickly continuing when the boy just stares at him, the panic making the words flow more smoothly somehow:

 

“I mean, what’s your name? I know who you are, of course I know, I just, I don’t know your name, so please, just tell me your name?” 

 

He knows he’s begging but he doesn’t care, this is too important. His pup ducks his head but Derek can still see the small smile forming.

  
“Oh.”

 

He bites his lip and then looks back up at Derek, taking a determined step forward.

 

“I’m Stiles.”

 

Derek squeezes the hand he’s still holding onto and can’t help the big grin forming on his face which is echoed on Stiles’.

 

“Hi, Stiles. I’m Derek.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The End!
> 
> After 36.000 words I've finally made it to the last line that I had already written, back when I thought this fic might end up being 5k long tops! 
> 
> There is a sequel in the plans, but as it is not yet written, I can't promise how quickly it'll be posted! I'm definitely not finished with this Stiles and Derek yet, though, so stay tuned!
> 
> Thank you all so much for every single kudos and comment this fic has gotten already!
> 
> And now lastly, as always: 
> 
> I'd love to hear what you thought, so please leave a comment below or come talk to me on [tumblr](thedaughterofkings.tumblr.com)!

**Author's Note:**

> I'd love to hear what you thought, so please leave a comment below or come talk to me on [tumblr](thedaughterofkings.tumblr.com)!


End file.
